An abundance of God’s Blessing on the table

Croatians have been preparing ‘Lenten dried Cod’,(bakalar) a top culinary specialty, since the beginning of the 20th century, on Good Friday, Ash Wednesday and Christmas Eve.

’National dishes’ or ‘cookery’ among Croats is a pretty flexible and varied theme, because like many other nations, states or districts, the food and cooking don’t necessarily adhere to or respect any precise borders. Thanks be to the Lord for that!

The Croat can be grateful to God for being born in an area with such a variety of geo-bio-nutritional results: Our boundaries cover regions of pure Mediterranean meteorological influences, from the Adriatic sea with it’s most distant islands of Svetac, Palagruža and Vis, as well as a huge number of other islands (over a thousand). Then we go northwards and inland to Istria, eastwards to Lika, Zagorje, down to Slavonia, then back through Bosnia to the rocky limestone area of Hercegovina, down to Dalmatia, and the coastlands inland of Dubrovnik.
Here the Mediterranean and Continental climates have mingled and complemented each other and even that has added an abundance of God’s blessings to the kitchen and the table. Besides the ample range of foods, there are also a wide variety of fresh spices and aromatic herbs which add to the goodness and flavor, regardless of whether the meat is beef, poultry, game, fish, or any other dish.

In Hercegovina we often say, that we were brought up on hard corn-mush, and it is true. But it was stuff which we hadn’t even the opportunity to produce ourselves, since tobacco and vineyards occupied what little fertile soil was at our disposal. Therefore we had to go to the rich areas of Slavonia and Vojvodina to earn the corn meal. Actually we were paid literally in kilos of corn.

In coastal Dalmatia they will tell you that they were raised on sardines, and some are not ashamed to admit that today. Now it’s hard to find sardines on restaurant menus as it’s still considered a pauper’s meal.

The Dalmatians used to give or sell the better quality fish to the wealthy for their banquets. So we Croats in most cases were just “the gold diggers”, i.e. the poorest ones laboring for the rich – the owners of “the gold mines”.

The full article can be found on pages 78-79 of January 2007 issue.