Ajvar, tursija and sour cabbage - Serbia's winter delights

Tag : cabbage
Belgrade - Walking down a street or riding an elevator in Belgradeon any given day in September, you are bound sense an aromaticcloud which may be unpleasant for foreigners, but invariably stirsthe appetites of the locals. The scent penetrating from a closeddoor tells whether a neighbour is frying peppers to store theme ina mixture of cooking oil, water and herbs or to combine them withmashed tomato and perhaps aubergine. A balcony door may release the rich, sweet smell of plums cookedwith sugar and a little water, while the pungent, sour aroma from awhite plastic barrel locked away in a basement betrays the presenceof sour cabbage. And the recipe books are brimming with otherideas. Some households spend several weeks labouring over these delightsas dictated by the season - peppers first, beginning in late Augustand white grapes last, in October, with the bulk of the franticwork carried out during nightshifts in September. The Markovic family, who live in the Belgrade borough of Zemun,convert their two-room, third floor flat into a virtual foodfactory, every August. Huge 20-litre pots line the kitchen walls beside which are dozensof jars, spices, rubber bands, gauze, sealing hoods and woodenspoons all arranged to be within easy reach once the packagingstarts. Children are discouraged from entering because there are plenty ofhot foods boiling on the stove and to prevent them from bringing ingerms. The path from kitchen to balcony has been covered with nylonsheets, the space around the stove and hooded vent has been linedwith newspapers to save carpets from stains and the ceiling fromaromatic, greasy vapours. "We make ajvar, pindzur and tursija. In supermarkets, industrialproducts cost five or six times more than when we make them andthey are not nearly as good," says Draginja Markovic, 40, a nurseand mother of three boys. The bright, red ajvar consists of cooked, mashed red peppers withtomatoes - the spicier, darker pindzur is similar, but containsaubergine. Apart from the usual array of spices and herbs, about a third ofthe 12 kilogrammes of either - which is eatenon bread or as a sidedish - is laced with piping hot, thin peppers. Tursija contains green tomatoes, carrots, peppers, onions,cauliflower and broccoli pickled and tightly packed in 30 litres ofsalted and spiced water. The Markovic late-summer enterprise is by no means unusual, thoughmore and more urban households have abandoned it due to a lack oftime or because they earn enough money to buy it from villagers inthe market. In addition to ajvar, pindzur and tursija, finished, labelled andsorted in their basement cubicle by mid September, the Markovicsare also planning "kiseli kupus" (sour cabbage). They will carefully pack around 30 to 35 cabbages, weighing nearly50 kilos, into a plastic barrel and filled it with salted water twodays later. Then they will regularly drain the liquid through a pipe on thebottom and return it through the top, while the cabbage simmersslowly without becoming spoiled - though an untrained nose may findit difficult to tell. The cabbage is eaten from the barrel, rolled around minced meat for"sarma" or cut into thin strips and baked in the oven with pork orturkey in "podvarak," the traditional winter meals. The salty-sour liquid, brimming with vitamin C which the Serbsinsist is the world's healthiest drink and the best cure for ahangover, is called "rasol" and consumed. Cabbage and rasol must beconsumed before the summer and bacteria set in. Late September and early October are reserved for jam making -plum, apricot, pear and quince jam - and the jam's relative, thestrongly sweet "slatko" of the same fruits and also of whitegrapes. Slatko, which has so much sugar that it does not spoil, like honey,is served with coffee and is not eaten like jam. Syrup is madesimultaneously with the jam and produces a thick juice when dilutedwith water. Draginja, who brought the recipes from her family home in a villagesome 60 kilometres west of Belgrade, insists she would be makingher own preserves even if she had money to buy them. "We are used to the work so it doesn't bother us and we tweaked therecipes exactly to our taste, so we don't really like to eat itelsewhere and definitely dislike factory products," she says.