Goulash

Goulash (Hungarian: gulyás [ˈɡujaːʃ]) is a soup or stew of meat and vegetables, seasoned with paprika and other spices. Originating from the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, goulash is also a popular meal in Central Europe, Scandinavia and Southern Europe.

Its origin traces back to the 9th century to stews eaten by Hungarian shepherds. Back then, the cooked and flavored meat was dried with the help of the sun and packed into bags produced from sheep's stomachs, needing only water to make it into a meal. It is one of the national dishes of Hungary and a symbol of the country.

Etymology

The name originates from the Hungarian "gulyás" [ˈɡujaːʃ]. The word "gulya" means "herd of cattle" in Hungarian, and "gulyás" means "herdsman" or "cowboy".

The word gulyás originally meant only "herdsman", but over time the dish became gulyáshús (goulash meat) – that is to say, a meat dish which was prepared by herdsmen. Today, gulyás refers both to the herdsmen, and to the soup. From the Middle Ages until well into the 19th century, the Puszta was the home of massive herds of cattle. They were driven, in their tens of thousands, to Europe’s biggest cattle markets in Moravia, Vienna, Nuremberg and Venice. The herdsmen made sure that there were always some cattle that had to be slaughtered along the way, the flesh of which provided them with gulyáshús.

Goulash (bridge)

Goulash (also Ghoulie) is a style of playing the card game of bridge, normally in friendly play such as rubber bridge, in which the cards are not thoroughly shuffled between consecutive deals. The aim is to create deals where the suits are more unevenly distributed between the players, thus creating "wild" deals in order to make the game more vivid.

Goulash dealing has variations; basically, each player sorts the cards from the previous deal by suits, and all four hands are stacked back in the deck. The deck is then cut once or twice, and cards are then dealt in groups of 4-5-4 or 5-5-3, instead of one at a time as usual.

Some players play a goulash in rubber bridge only when the previous deal was passed out; others play full goulash rubbers. In both cases, at least a game must be bid in the goulash deal, otherwise, the partial (part score) contract is discarded and the goulash redealt.

When goulash dealing is in effect, some players adjust their bidding principles in some or all of the following ways in order to accommodate the anticipated wildness of the deal: