When I was a kid, I belonged to the Boy Scouts for a while, and even attended summer camp one year. On one rainy day at camp, for reasons I don't remember, I stayed back from the planned activity and instead helped the adult leaders prepare for lunch. The meal was what I then thought goulash to be, a combination of elbow macaroni, mild tomato sauce, and crumbled hamburger that had little in common with the traditional dish from Eastern Europe.
It was a great meal nonetheless. Mostly it was the circumstances: I had my portion while standing under the dining fly with the leaders before the other boys arrived, sheltered from the rain, feeling safe and accepted to a degree that was rare for me. The goulash itself was delicious and (for me, anyway) an embodiment of comfort food.
Many years later, I traveled to the borough of Queens in New York City to visit family. By this time, I was vaguely aware that there was a food called goulash that was much different than what I'd grown up with, but had no real idea what the 'real thing' might be. For my first meal in New York City, we went to a largish restaurant that felt much more like a diner than a fine dining place. When I saw 'goulash' on the specials board, I felt compelled to order it.
The dish that was served to me was tender cubes of beef, tasting strongly of what I now know as paprika, resting on a bed of egg noodles. There was a little broth, but not really enough to call a pasta sauce. I can no longer taste it in my "mind's mouth", but I found it stunningly delicious.
As i write, there's an interesting contrast that occurs. Outside the realm of cookbooks, meals are profoundly impacted by the circumstances in which we eat them. Is the meal an occasion, or are we just filling our bellies? Who, if anyone, are we with and how do we feel about them? Are we falling in love with our companion or coming to grips with love that is no longer? In the camp experience, the memories of the meal are powered by its circumstances: the food was good, but I'd eaten identical dishes many times. On the other hand, though my pleasure in the New York City goulash was enhanced by the excitement of my visit to the city, it is the food itself that I think about.
Oddly, I find myself reluctant to try making Hungarian goulash in my own kitchen. It seems impossible to make a dish of the quality of that I had in Queens, especially given that memory has likely added flavor not on the original plate. Nor could I recreate the circumstances of the scout camp goulash and the comfort that memory brings me.
A number of years ago. I (and my then non-existent cooking skills) were invited to a potluck put on by a group with a VERY culturally diverse membership. We were all invited to bring foods from our own culture that were important to us. I was stumped: I could not think of a single food, other than those everyone would already know, that fit the guideline. It was then that I first thought about this idea of the flavor added to food by a meal's circumstances. Sure, I could have made root beer floats for my friends, but I could not have made a root beer float eaten on a hot Iowa summer day when you're ten years old. That flavoring is not found in my kitchen or yours.
But goodness, that float was delicious.
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