We’re in America Now, We Eat Beef

From a 20th century cookbook and assimilation pressures, an Irish family discovered their family-favorite meal. Hungarian-inspired goulash.

The contributor’s family came to America from an impoverished background in Ireland. There, the mother was given an American Good Housekeeping cookbook when she got married. This recipe was the only one that stuck. Not only was it cheap and surprisingly simple to prepare, it aligned with the saying that had been instilled in the family from a young age, “we’re in America now, we eat beef.”

Despite coming from a family who did not enjoy sweet or spicy dishes, this paprika-packed meal immediately became a household staple.

Today, the contributor prepares the meal for family and friends who describe it as a comfort meal.

The family goulash did not cross the Atlantic and had not been passed down and preserved for generations, instead it came from a cookbook recipe. Yet, decades of preparing and sharing this meal with loved ones transformed a simple printed recipe into a family tradition, one created not before immigration, but during and after it.