From the 1960s-1980s recipe box of a midwestern grandma.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup butter or margarine

2 medium green peppers, cut into strips

2 medium onions, sliced

3 large tomatoes (coarsely cut up and peeled) or 1 can (drained) of tomato pieces

6 small zucchini (about 1 pound) or 3 yellow squash and 3 zucchini. With trimmed ends.

1/2 teaspoon salt and dash of pepper

1 12-ounce can whole kernel corn

1/2 cup grated sharp cheese (1/8 pound)

Directions:

Melt butter in skillet or pan and sauté green peppers and onions about 10 minutes of until tender.

Add tomatoes, whole zucchini (If desired, gash small zucchini is 3 or 4 places), and salt and pepper.

Cover. Summer about 15 minutes or until tender.

Add corn and heat over low heat just ‘til boiling.

Stir in cheese just before serving.

The biggest most obvious note: This is not goulash (gulyás).

Also: This recipe is not what my grandma, my mom, and all of the midwest (as far as I can tell) called goulash (which, similarly, was also not actual goulash).

Good ol’ fashioned Hoosier “Hungarian Goulash:”

Ground beef, elbow macaroni, chopped green pepper, chopped onion, diced tomato (canned; sometimes with a can of tomato paste added), a skosh of powdered garlic, a shake of powdered onion, as my grandma would say “salt and a dash of pepper”, and paprika.

In mid to late 20th century kitchen science: the paprika is what made it “Hungarian.” (Turns out that this is not totally off-base).

Generic Mid-western (non-Hungarian) white people. I don’t know what to tell ya.

If you’re looking for more traditional Hungarian options:

See gourmetcubicle, Taste Hungary, or Nosalty (you will need to run this one through a translator).