REGIONAL CROATIAN CUISINE

FOOD AND TRADITIONAL FESTIVITIES

Many Croatian traditional festivities are pronouncedly linked with food, independent of whether related to hard work (crop harvest or threshing, grape harvest and christening of wine, completion of a house), religion (mostly Catholic - Christmas, Easter, pilgrimages, local saints days), or memorable moments in a main s life (baptism, weddings, birthdays, name-days, funeral feasts). Some of the festivities are typically of a public character, like the Dionysian St. Martin s Day, calebrated in private cottage houses, wine cellars and restaurants, others are almost excusively family reunions (weddings, baptism, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Easter).

Every holiday has its typical dish. Pork-and-potato stew is eaten on pilgrimages and fairs, codfish is prepared for Christmas Eve and Good Friday, pork is eaten on the New Year s Day, doughnuts are an inseparable part of the carnival festivities, and in the south a similar fried sweet dish called hrostule. Ham and boiled eggs with green vegetables are served for Easter, and the desert is made up of traditional cakes (e.g. pinca); kullen (hot-pepper flavoured sausage) for harvest, goose for St.Martin s Day, turkey and other fowl as well as sarma (meat-stuffed cabbage leaves) are served for Christmas Day. on weddings, a variety of dishes with dozes of cookies (breskvice, paws, gingerbread cookies, fritule - plain fritters, etc.).

Favorite food among masses of people on all occasions includes spit-roasted lamb and suckling, grilled fish, calamari on various ways, barbecue dishes - raznjici and cevapcici and mixed grill, prosciutto and sheep cheese or smoked ham and cottage cheese with sour cream, fishstew, venison.

THE CUISINE OF DALMATIA

The cuisine of Dalmatia and the islands follows the trend of the modern nutritionist recommendations. The short thermic preparation of foodstuffs (mainly cooking or grilling) and plenty of fish, olive oil, vegetable and self-grown herbs found near the sea is why this cuisine is considered very healthy.

Dalmatian wines, like olive oil and salted olives, have been praised from the ancient times, which the present names of some of the indigenous grape sorts reveal (Grk -Greek from the island of Korcula, Prc from the island of Hvar). The famous wines include Dingac and Postup from the Peljesac Peninsula, Babic from Primogsen, Vugava and Plancic from the island of Hvar. Posip and Grk from Korcula, Marastina from the island of Lastovo, Malmsy from Dubrovnik, etc. but also Prosecco (sweet desert wine), then very strong grape (loza) and herbal braindies (travarica, grapes with medicinal herbs) and liqueurs (Maraschino, Vlahov).

Although even today every place has its own way of preparing a certain dish, the cuisine of the islands represent a separate world with their distinguishing features being discovered only recently, such as the cuisinE of the islands of Hvar, Korcula, Brac (vitalac, a dish made of lamb entrails wrapped in lamb intestines and spike-roasted), Vis (spike-roasted pilchards, like during the Ancient Greek period, the flat cake with pilchards from Komiza and Vis, related to today‘s pizza). Fresh sea fish (dog's tooth, giltheat, seabass, grooper, mackerel, pilchard) either grilled or boiled or marinated, then molluscs (squid, cuttlefish, octopus), crustaceans (shrimps, lobster) and shellfish (mussels, oysters, date-shells) boiled, in fish stew or risotto. Of meat prosciutto is certainly unmatched, pork leg smoked and dried in the bora (from Drnis), served with dry, mostly sheep cheese (the famous kinds are those from Pag and Dubrovnik) and salted green and black olives and capers and pickled onions. Lamb is also very praised, especially boiled or baked in the open fire (franjevacka begovica from Visovac, or lopiz from the island of Iz, then dried mutton (kastradina), roast beaf, Dalmatian stew (pasticada) with gnocchi offered by many restaurants. Light boiled vegetable is also a favorite dish (Swiss chard with potatoes, tomato sauce) often a mixture of cultivated and self-grown vegetables, spiced with olive oil and wine vinegar, or served with meat (manestra - pasta with minced meat, arambasici - stuffed vine leaves).

Regions with plenty of freshwater are famous for frog, eel and river crab dishes (the Neretva valley, Trilj and the Cetina basin). Typical dalmatian deserts win with their simplicity. The most usual ingredients include Mediterranean fruit, dried figs and raisins, almonds, honey, eggs (rafioli, mandulat, smokvenjak, the gingerbead -cookies from the island of Hvar, rozata).

THE CUISINE OF ISTRIA AND KVARNER REGIONS

The cuisine of Istria and Kvarner regions represents a special Croatian cuisine, a mixture of the inland and coastal cuisine. These regions are rich in excellent fish and seafood, most valuable among them being north. Adriatic scampi (prawns), calamari and shellfish from the Limski Kanal Fiord. After excellent prosciutto, cheese and olives, many traditional wine cellars offer fish soup, fishstew, boiled prawns, black and white seafood risotto as well as other dishes typical of the central part of the peninsula - the traditional wine soup, ragout (jota) similar to the Italian minestrone (manistra, menestra), but also pasta and risotto dishes with famous truffles, self-grown precious mushroom species, "dug out" from the underground by specially trained dogs and pigs; these mushrooms have the reputation of an aphrodisias.

Excellent Istrian wines include: Malmsy of Buje, Cabernet of Porec, Sauvignon and Merlot, as well as Terrano of Buzet, Zlahtina of Vrbnik, and sparkling wines Bakarska Vodica, etc.

There are many fine restaurants in Istria, especially on the Opatija, Crikvenica, Rovinja and Porec littorals, in the interior and on the islands.

THE CUISINE OF GORSKI KOTAR AND LIKA

The cuisine of Gorski Kotar and Lika reflects the conditions of living on forested highlands and pastures where summers are short and winters long, which limits the highlands and pastures where summers are short and winters long, which limits the selection of foodstuffs. It is recognized by its simplicity (open-fire cooking and baking), like the regions closer to the sea (Dalmatinska Zagora and central Istria), but its everyday meals include predominantly continental products - pura (hardboiled maize much), boiled potatoes or potato halves baked in skin, pickled cabbage, broad-beans and beans, cow and sheep milk and delicious cheese (fermented cheese called basa, dried cheese), and of meat, fresh and smoked lamb, mutton and pork as well as venison.

These regions are rich in mushrooms and self-grown herbs, but there are also the delicious strong plum brandy and brandies made of forest fruits or mixed with honey. The cuisine of Lika is found in the region of the Plitvice Lakes, and fine homemade cheese can be bought when driving on the roads throught Lika.

THE CUISINE OF SLAVONIA AND BARANJA

Slavonia and Baranja are the bread basket of Croatia, rich and fertile, so that white bread, flat cakes and many other cake stuffed with walnuts, poppy, and plum jam have been baked here from the ancient times, made of the most represented bread green - wheat. Pasta, potato, bean, dairy; (cottage cheese with sow cream, dried cheese) dishes and fat mead dishes of fattened fore and pigs, are prepared here. Such type of food used to provide energy required for heavy work, but today is might be a troublesome habit. In these regions hot goulash (beef, vension), regos (several meats with pasta), fish paprika-flavoured stew (with various fish: carp, pike, sheat-fish,etc.) are typical of the regions. Smoked and dried pork ham, sausages as well as kulen and also favorite, served as delicacy with cottage cheese, peppers, tomatoes and green onions or picked vegetabled (tursija).

The plum brandy from this region is very "soft", and wines, such as Kutjevacka Grasevina and Kutjevo Chardonnay, Rhine Riesling of Enjingi but also the Grasevinas of Krautheker and Zdjelarevic, 11ok Thaminer, Pinot Blanc from Pajzos and Endent Riesling from Belje are distinguished in the world. The wine from the winecellars of the Djakovo diocese, famous for the production of wines used in liturgical sevice, are also well known.

THE CUISINE OF NORTH WEST CROATIA

The cuisine of north western Croatia is characterized by many simple, delicious dishes. Bread is mostly of maize, barley or mixed, sometimes baked in the baker‘s oven, and cakes are often similar to bread (kukuruznjaca - made of maize, periaca, zelevanka, buhtli, doughnuts, walnut and poppy loaves, form cake). Lots of pasta, dairy products, mostly made of cow milk, as well as plenty of vegetable are included (beans, potatoes, cabbage), offen mixed with some meat into a borch (zucchini, cucumers, shell beans, beans, peas in the summer, and beans with picked cabbage in winter, beans with barley porridge) and salads (fresh cucumbers with sour cream and garlic, lettuce, tomato salad, peppers and onion). This is where food provision for winter is still made in the traditionaly way (pickled cabbage, cucumbers boiled in vinegar, picked peppers, red beet, as well as sweet dishes - plum jam, dog-rose berry marmelade, bottled fruit, etc.). As the southern cuisine differs from island to island so does the cuisine in this part of the country differ from region to region.

In the region of Medimurje one must taste the buckwheat porridge with meat from fat or blood sausages, as well as side dishes made of baked beans or potatoes, formed in cones, with rich spices, or smoked or dried cow cheese turas, known in the region of Podrvina as prge. Turkey with mlinci (cooked pasta dish), strudel various parts as well as pumpkin cake with poppy have spread from the region of Zagorje throughout Croatia. There are hardly more delicious geese and ducks than those from the region of Turopolje, and backed carp (krapec na procep) than the one from the regions of Moslavina and Posavina. The region of Banovina became famous for its winter salami (Gavrilovic salami). blood sausage, garlic-sausages and special sausage, for baking with picked cabbage, boiled smoked pork leg with potato or bean salad with onion are favorite dishes almost everywhere.

Samobor, a small town near Zagreb, is an ideal place for gastronomic excursions. Its picturesque restaurants offer the Samobor Steak, the Samobor custard slices, alami and kotlovina - port and potatoes stew, hermet (sweet spicy wine) and mustarda which have been prepared here for almost two hundred years.

The cuisine of Varazdin, and in particular of Zagreb, represent urban, metropolitan cuisine, related to the more famous Viennese cuisine. Of course, Zagreb has also its steak (bread coated veale stuffed with cheese), but it also offers a variety of baked dishes (beef, pork and fowl) served with potatoes, vegetables and horse radish, as well as various stews (wine goulash, bacon and tripes, lungs sour art), grilled mead, pasta. Delicious sweets continue the hundred-year old tradition of the bakery woman from Gric and bishops pastry cooks, revealing the Croatian desert cuisine in its entire variety (Croatian pancakes, Zagorje strudel, strudel stuffed with cottage cheese or apple strudel, bucanica, various cakes, ice-creams).

The Zagreb cuisine of today is international, the best Italian cuisine is highly represented, and often the restaurants offer better quality fish that those on the coast, more delicious lamb than in the region of Lika and better kulen than in Slavonia.

One should taste the foollowing wines from this region: Portugizac from Plesivica and Jastrebarsko, the Rhine Riesling, Chardonnay from Strigovan Muscat Otonel, Turk's sparkling wines as well as the wines from wine-cellars in Bozjakovina, Pinot Blanc from Sveti Ivan Zelina, Moslovina Skrlet from Voloder as well as many other wines, but also the traditional drink gvirc (gvirc, mead) with gingerbread cookies.