It is like any other goulash except that the diced vegetables are cooked separately and thrown into the pot just before serving. Like Irish stew, Lancashire hot-pot and spaghetti bolognese, Szeged goulash is unknown in the place that gave it its name, though the dish often appears on restaurant menus in other places, notably in cheaper Austrian inns. Yet the town itself is not unlike a stew—a lot of miscellaneous elements thrown into a pot and boiled. If you travel to Szeged by train, across the great Hungarian plain that used to extend (in happier times) far into what is now Romania and Serbia, the landmark warning you of imminent arrival is a tall white building of recent construction, the salami factory, a source of pride and employment for many of the town’s citizens. Salami is, indeed, ubiquitous in a place that knows nothing of Szeged goulash: in the salami factory’s immense retail outlet in the centre of the town you may buy all sorts of salamis, some in elaborate gift-packaging contained in satin-lined wooden boxes.
