[Sca-cooks] Goulash

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Phlip:
>Tell you what, think I'll ask Gene and Paul what they think- I'll go find
>the 2 X 4 and see what it says about spices on the package.

Would that be bastourma? The stuff I've seen usually involves
paprika, something celery-ish, up to or including celery seed, but
possibly lovage...

>  One of the
>discussions we've been having, includes the fact that Asians in the field,
>whether Mongols, Chinese, or whatever, did make comments about getting
>whatever and throwing it all in the pot, as opposed to the Europeans who
>usually seemed to use meat and pot herbs. Paul's looking for cites for me,
>in some of the material he didn't publish.
>
>>  It does make sense that it is turkish field rats made into a local dish.
>>  margali
>>  ya wanna dig into the beef lump and see if it works that way? We do need
>>  dinner tonight ;-)
>
>Let me see what I can find out. I could definitely use a good pot of
>something for dinner- I'm getting joint aches, and a stewy sort of thing
>tends to warm me down to the bones.
>
>What do you have in the way of generic pasta? That seems to be what was used
>by Mongols, pre-potatoes.

Hungarian writers like Paul Kovi, George Lang (and others) speak of
tarhonya, which is kinda like egg barley, made by forming a simple,
very firm pasta dough, letting it dry a bit, then grating it
coarsely, which they then dry for tossing into soups and stews. This
is a dish which, it is alleged, keeps better than whole grain under
travelling conditions, cooks quickly, and is generally kewl for the
nomadic lifestyle. I'd be surprised if the Mongols or some other
Central Asian people did not invent it (since, unlike many dried
noodles, it can't really be crushed easily). The Chinese also use
little pellets of pasta, made from various flours.

Adamantius
--
"No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes
deserves to be called a scholar."
	-DONALD FOSTER