[Sca-cooks] Back to Lutheran binder

[Philip W. Troy & Susan Troy]

johnna holloway wrote:
>
> Since everyone was into Lutheran potluck discussions,
> here's a website just tailor made for the discussion.
>
> Johnna Holloway

Thank you! Some of this actually looks as if it might not be toxic in
the strictest sense, for the healthier among us, although I do note that
the binder in question is in evidence in placews where one might not
expect it.

So, at risk of bringing up a topic related to food history, although not
medieval food history, I have a question for the Middle American food
mavens out there. A year or so ago I had noted that there is this thing
out there in space called goulash, generally consisting of cubed meat,
possibly onion, some garlic, a jot perhaps of marjoram or savory, cooked
with a heavily paprika-ed gravy, which may or may not include a final
garnish of sour cream stirred in, or perhaps even some grated lemon rind
and crushed caraway seed. (This is vaguely Hungarian, but I would
suspect it has been standardized somewhat by various contintental chefs
over the years.)

And then there's an evidently unrelated dish, also called goulash, made
with ground beef, a tomato product, and pasta. I actually remember
eating this as a child as far from Middle America as New York (okay, I
guess there are parts of New York State that are technically Middle
American in spirit, if not geographically).

So, after viewing The Ode To The Lutheran Binder Web Site, I'll get to
my point: a similarly bowlderized American dish, which may, like the
goulash referenced above, have evolved almost in parallel with a dish
that may be viewed as more mainstream (even if it is not), is Beef
Stroganoff. Classically this is a quickly-sauteed, chafing-dish sort of
thing, made with thinly-sliced, tender beef, onions, mushrooms, red
wine, sour cream, etc., and then there is what appears to be a stew made
with vaguely similar ingredients, but cooked for a long time, often, it
seems, finished in the oven for a couple of hours. The meat is cubed and
requires this long cooking for edibility. I once encountered this myself
in Wilkes-Barre, PA, and see there's a version of it on the Lutheran
Brotherhood Potluck website.

At the risk of leading the witness, I wonder if there's any basis to
suggest that the hotdish is the American version of Cholent, something
you'd possibly put up the night before, then leave in the oven to finish
cooking during a vigorous Sunday morning of Scripture-of-your-choice-thumping?

In our earlier discussion of goulash, it was suggested (and fairly well
supported) that what had happened was a case of parallel evolution. I'm
not completely convinced that this is the case for the two Stroganoff
dishes, but does anybody have any ideas on this?

Adamantius
--
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com

"It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98