A taste of home in the middle of Kosovo

Romain's Serbian colleague recently had a baby boy so we were invited over this week to meet him.  We didn't realise that this would also involve a lot of drinking and eating, although after living in Kosovo for as long as we have, it really didn't come as much of a surprise.

What did come as a surprise, however, was that the "traditional Serbian food" they served us had a distinctly Australian vibe about it:  rissoles for dinner, followed by lamingtons for dessert.

The evening began with, of course, the obligatory oohing and aahing over little Jovan (John in Serbian, who is a cutie) and the discussions about sleep or lack thereof.  Then the dad, Ivan, cracked open a bottle of Rakia (the alcohol of choice in the Balkans, kind of like schnapps) and served it up in little potion bottles.  Because I was pregnant and not allowed to drink alcohol, they offered me wine (??), but I opted for juice instead.

Romain looking like he has already had quite a few 'magic potion bottles'.

To go with our drinks we were offered "sweets & water"  (I can't remember the Serbian word for it).  It is a jar full of preserved apricots pitted with hazelnuts and covered in syrup which you dig out with a spoon and then wash down with water.  It is apparently a tradition to kick off any celebration.  It was pretty good.

Julie, Cailean and the new 'big sister' being served their 'sweet and water' thing.

Then they brought out a plate of rissoles!  They called it pljeskavica, but they looked and tasted pretty much like good old Aussie rissoles to me.  We ate them with fetta (of course!), fresh tomatoes and fresh bread.

Pjleskavica

It's a rissole, folks.

I desperately wanted to load all mine into a burger, so I was very happy when I saw Ivan do exactly that.  It was almost like being at an Aussie BBQ.

Then we were served a slice of very dense and not particularly sweet cake with bananas in the middle and unsweetened cream on top.  After stuffing ourselves with 'rissoles' it was a struggle to get through.  But we dutifully munched it down.

A big slice of banana cake.  Oiy.

AND THEN they brought out a plate of lamingtons!  I was so shocked!  And thought for a brief second that all this had been done in my honour to give me a taste of home, because lamingtons were the last thing I was expecting to find in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Kosovo in the middle of the Balkans.

The Serbs are even more Aussie than the Aussies, they serve their lamingtongs with beer, mate.  (Lav is a Serbian beer).

A coconut cube cake by any other name would taste just as sweet.

But as it turns out, lamingtons, which they call 'coconut cube cakes' (boring!) are something that is traditionally served by the new mother to visiting guests.  Because of course a new mother has nothing better to do with her time than bake sponge cakes, cover them in chocolate sauce and roll them in coconut all day long.

So beside the fact that I was full to the point of explosion, I still managed to squeeze in a 'coconut cube cake' for old times sake.  They decided they liked the name lamington better and so that's what they are going to call it now.

There is a fancy new bakery that has opened in Gjilan that I have been meaning to visit, so now I'll be disappointed if they don't have cabinets full of finger buns, cream buns, vanilla slice and neenish tarts.

In terms of other weird Serbian birth traditions, here are a couple:

Apparently as soon as someone finds out that a Serb has become a father they are customarily obliged to tear to shreds the shirt he is wearing, leaving him walking the streets or corridors of the hospital with a pile of tattered cloth on his back.  So around the due date, Serbian dads-to-be are well advised to wear their oldest and daggiest shirts around.

A photo of Ivan, taken by his daughter.  He said he wore a shirt with the flag of Serbia on it to the hospital, hoping that would deter his mates from ripping it apart.  It didn't.

There is an old Serbian/Balkan saying 'to be as drunk as a mother' and apparently this comes from an old tradition, not practiced so widely today, that a new mother was not allowed to drink water but only Rakia for the first 40 days after the birth of the baby.  Rakia is extremely potent and I suppose new mums spent their whole day blind drunk, which probably helped to cope with the lack of sleep and other chores of looking after a screaming baby.  And maybe breastmilk loaded with alcohol proved to be an effective way of stopping the baby screaming in the first place.

Little Jovan with his mum and sister.