Food & Beverage

Food is such a major part of the Serbian culture and tradition and MAN do they know what they are doing. I have yet to encounter a Serbian dish I don’t like. It seems the main rule in Serbian cooking is, “Never enough onion or garlic,” and as long as you’re okay with that you’re good to go. The first ethnic thing Milan cooked for me was cevaps (chee-vops or chey-vops, depending on local dialect, which is a shortened version of cevapcici) which are about the size and shape of breakfast sausage links that don’t have casings….but they are made of a beef, pork and lamb combo. You grill them up and eat them with a side of diced onions on a pita or just plain...very yummy. Kajmak (ky-mahk) is another favorite, it is a lot like cream cheese only somehow better. Ajvar (Eye-var) is a vegetable spread there isn’t an American equivalent in texture or flavor but trust me it is good stuff…smear it on some bread with some kajmak and you’ll be in heaven. There are many others I’ve had at Milan’s sister’s house that I can’t remember what they are called…like sarma, their version of stuffed cabbage. Milan also makes this bean dish, I’m not sure if it has a name, but it is something his mom used to make when he was growing up….it is mashed up beans with onions and seasoning.

The alcohol…I don’t have much to say on this because I’ve only had it once and it was in a concoction that Kum told me was “Serbian tea.” I have seen recipes and it turns out that there is tea involved but you wouldn’t know by the taste. Sljivovica is Serbian plum brandy. When I tried it in the aforementioned tea my first thought was a saying my dad used to use, “That will put hair on your chest.” That, in turn, made me laugh since Milan is a bit on the furry side…it’s all because of slivo.

We are lucky enough to be blessed with an ethnic food store, owned by Serbs in fact, not too far from us. Last time I dropped in it was just Eric and I and as we were checking out the woman (I think she is an owner) gave Eric some candy and I told him to say, “hvala” (pronounced “fah-la” and it means thanks) which was a mistake because she then started speaking Serbian as though the kid and I were fluent. We just looked at her and she said “You don’t speak Serbian huh?” “I speak VERY little, like you heard the bulk of what I know, and my fiance hasn't taught the kid much yet.” She laughed and gave Eric homework to learn 3 new Serbian words before we went back in. We haven’t been back yet and I’m not sure Eric has learned any new words. Perhaps he has, he was fond of “mali mis” (molly meesh) which means “little mouse” when Milan called him that a few days ago…who knows if it stuck though.