Since I’ve not heard it mentioned in decades, do Hungarians still drink Tokay? Or here in US?
Absolutely. It’s not a daily drinker but, sure, it’s still prized and drunk.
That’s what my Hungarian mother always used. We always had a jar of bacon grease in the fridge.
Bacon grease/lard, onions, sour cream and paprika are the basis of most Hungarian cooking, in my experience. Even in salads (well, not the bacon grease but the other three).
I would say that the “holy Trinity” of Hungarian cooking is lard, onions, and paprika. So many of the most identifiable main dishes start with that. To be honest, it gets a little samey after awhile, so with stuff like pörkölt (goulash of the stew rather than soupy variety), I will often not only add caraway (which is fairly common), but also marjoram (which is somewhat more regionalized.)
Goose (or duck) fat is also pretty common to use as the animal fat base (especially paprikash.) I actually saw a nice pint of goose fat at my usual Eastern European grocery for $12.99. I’ll just stick to my cheap pork fat (rendered at the grocery; not the hydrogenated Armour bricks.)
Look at it this way: Paprika is nothing but a powdered vegetable.*
*or fruit, depending on how one looks at it
It gets reconstituted and basically becomes sauce. The other day I made vegetarian pörkölt with a half-pound of Pumfu, and I tossed in ¼ cup of paprika. I whipped up nökedli to go with it. Mm mm, sure was good.
I like that way of looking at it - especially if the quality of the paprika is good. (Nothing but Penzey’s or other high-end stuff for me, I’m a snob that way.)
I think the reason that 2 TBS seems like a lot to me is that I tend to season food with a variety of spices in one dish - cumin, white pepper, thyme, rosemary, cayenne, oregano, and even (grudgingly at first but now I like them) spice blends like Forward, Justice, and Mural of Flavor. Things I make often have 3-5 of those different seasonings, and if I used 2 TBS of ALL of them, it would be too much.
But the paprikash is meant to highlight the paprika, not mix it with a bunch of other flavors.