In the town of Aleksandrovac, wine even flows from a fountain
Russian-speaking travelers feel at home in Serbia. As Lenta.ru writes, all signs around are in Cyrillic, despite the creeping and already quite noticeable Latin influence. You begin to understand the language after a few minutes of active communication. Many words are similar, only some lack vowels. Knowledge of English is still a problem in the country, especially in the provinces, but this only encourages the search for Slavic roots.
By the whole world
In autumn, harvest festivals take place in different parts of Serbia. For a country where agriculture plays a key role in the economy, they are more than just a tribute to ancient tradition. They are an integral part of modern life. Moreover, that side of it that usually remains hidden from tourists.
If you think that the reckless heroes of Emir Kusturica are merely the fruit of the artistic imagination of a talented director and have nothing to do with reality, you just need to go, for example, to Aleksandrovac. This tiny town in the south of the country is considered something like the wine capital of the Aleksandrovac region (župa). At the end of September, it turns into a human beehive for several days.
Everything is overflowing here. Crowds of cheerful, happy, and not very sober people fill the streets. On every corner, some kind of food is being prepared or sold. The air is filled with amazingly appetizing smells of grilled meat and fresh bread. And on the main square, young wine with the gentle name ružica splashes cheerfully from the fountain. By the way, not every European wine festival can boast such an attraction.
People are not allowed near the fountain for obvious reasons. But nearby, pretty girls are on constant duty, ready to scoop a little Dionysian frenzy from the inexhaustible source and pour a glass for anyone who wants. Of course, completely free.
All the alleys are packed with cars and small cars. To some, which look quite decent, chicken cages and wine boxes are somehow attached. In different parts of the city, local musicians play lively tunes with genuine enthusiasm. So what if they don't always hit the notes exactly, it's heartfelt.
Having soaked up the festive atmosphere, you involuntarily catch yourself thinking that it would be good to get to know the subject, that is, food and wine, more thoroughly.
All to the table
Serbian cuisine can hardly be called refined. But that does not make it any less interesting. It is deliberately rough, but abundant and immediately wins you over with its straightforward honesty. In the appearance of many national specialties, traces of foreign influence are clearly distinguishable – Turkish, Hungarian, German, and to a lesser extent Italian. But this does not at all interfere with a holistic perception.
A Serbian meal begins with two fundamental things – bread and cheese. The cheese is usually soft, made from cow's, less often sheep's milk. The bread is fragrant, with a crispy crust and porous crumb. Terribly appetizing. As a rule, the table is also immediately served proja – small cornmeal buns with cheese, as well as kajmak from salted cream, pork cracklings, and pršut. The latter, unlike Italian prosciutto, is not only dried but also necessarily smoked.
Depending on the season, the simple set of appetizers is supplemented with fresh tomatoes and paprika, lightly grilled over coals and then generously seasoned with oil and garlic. Salads are usually served as a side dish to the main course. Those who are used to a different order should warn the waiter about this right away.
If you lose vigilance, you can easily get full to the point of fainting from the appetizers. But you still shouldn't do this, because there is still a lot of interesting things ahead.
Cheese, bread, sausages, balyk,
and pršut are always served
at the table at the very beginning
Local cuisine is a delight for Russian tourists, because it includes soup. Serbs distinguish between soup itself and čorba. The former is usually prepared in some special way, for example, boiled from beef knuckles. This is a delicacy that you will have to search for. The latter, contrary to the expectations of those who are well acquainted with South Balkan cuisine, is not made from cow's stomach (which is rarely eaten here at all), but simply from meat or fish. But the main thing is that it is abundantly filled with vegetables. Therefore, Serbian čorba is always thick and hearty.
Serbs are confirmed meat-eaters. In mountainous areas, lamb is honored, but in most of the country, there is a true cult of pork. This can be considered a form of gastronomic resistance of the proud Slavic people to the centuries-old Turkish yoke. Pork is prepared in all possible forms: whole carcasses roasted on spits, generous pieces of meat baked with vegetables, stewed ribs with sauerkraut, minced cutlets-pleskavica and quite Turkish kebabs with black Serbian onions, minced meat wrapped in grape (dolma) or cabbage (sarma) leaves.
Offal is also not wasted. It is chopped, lightly boiled, and then baked in the oven. The result is the most tender sarmica, oozing with appetizing fat.
After such a meal, all that remains is to breathe heavily and solemnly promise yourself not to overeat like that again. In Serbia, however, this vow is constantly broken.
Between the vine and the orchard
Among alcoholic beverages, rakija is most often found on a traditional Serbian table. Historically, it was usually made in villages, and everywhere. Since then, it has become customary, and it goes perfectly with the heavy local food. By the way, under Tito, Serbian peasants were not forbidden to distill rakija for their own needs. So the tradition, in essence, never stopped.
The most popular is considered to be the one made from plums. But today you can find many other versions – quince, apple, pear, apricot, grape.
Rakia is drunk throughout the entire meal, in small glasses, slowly savoring and smacking one's lips appreciatively. By the way, in bars – and this is also very Serbian – it is not customary to order it by the bottle, only by small glasses, even if the guests are serious and plan to spend more than an hour at the table.
In recent years, winemaking has been revived in Serbia. Under Tito, wine was also made in the country, but it was produced in large factories from grapes that were brought from everywhere. It was not particularly tasty – it turned out flat, short, and very acidic. After the breakup of Yugoslavia, private farms appeared, actively adopting advanced winemaking experience. The result was not long in coming. Today, there are about two hundred wineries in the country. Some have already confidently made a name for themselves on the international stage.
If you have the chance, be sure to pay attention to the muscular and rich Cabernet from Radovanovic, the unexpectedly spicy Tamjanika and elegant Prokopac from Ivanovic, the expressive Sauvignon, the unusually elegant Chardonnay with a soft creamy texture from Matalj, and the surprisingly stylish Bordeaux blends from Kis.
But sparkling wines are almost impossible to find in the country. It's simple – the Serbs themselves do not favor them too much. Well, they might share one bottle among the table, and even then with difficulty, just to quickly move on to more 'serious' drinks. The fingers on one hand are enough to count the farms that today use the classic champagne method with secondary fermentation in the bottle and long aging on the lees. But in the cellars of Aleksandrovic and Kovacevic, one can find very respectable versions, quite worthy even by European standards.