Serbian Christmas

[srhcb]

I owe most of you an appology - I've promissed lots of Serbian Recipes, but haven't had the time for it.

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Real quick, to reply to many at once:

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(Vegeta - Croatian made spice or Veg - Hungarian are a must. In Serbia we have "Zacin C", not as popular as "Vegeta" though). You can obtain this spice in Mediterranean, European or even Russian stores across the US. It is used in almost all dishes in Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian or Macedonian cuisine.

Bozic (= Christmas in Serbian)

Nice Job! I'm not familiar with "Urmasica" (I'll ask my Mother), but your stuffed pepper recipe looks pretty much like my Grandmother's.

Your "Sarmas" look familiar. Around here, (Northern Minnesota's Iron Range), stuffed cabbage rolls are are mandatory fare at local weddings and funerals, and there have been many heated arguments over the "correct" form.

The ground meat mixture may or may not include ham, and they might baked in sauerkraut, (which seems to be the Serb preference), or cabbage, which may or may not include tomato sauce. (The heathen Slovenians make it that way)

The stufffed pancakes resemble what we call "Polichnkas", which are a bit thicker than crepes and rolled around either a fruit jam or cottage cheese type filling before being baked.

The "Cevapi" look familiar, but I'm sure I haven't had them since Grandma died quite a while ago.

I'm not familiar with "Zacin C" or "Vegeta", but once again I'll check with Mom. Coincidently, my Mom has always been known as "Vegie" for some reason not directly associated with her real name, "Zvezdana", which I believe means "star".

Thanks to everybody for helping with this fun Thread!

S (half Serb) B

[prasantrin]

I owe most of you an appology - I've promissed lots of Serbian Recipes, but haven't had the time for it.

Real quick, to reply to many at once:

That "nice, tasty thing" is called "URMASICA", and that is not a Serbian dish. It would be lovely if Serbs could say "hey, this awesome thing was first made by us" (I'm a Serb myself), but it is completely - Turkish (Ottoman times). Some places in DC are even selling it and it goes for about $3.50 per Lb here.

Thanks so much for putting a name to it! Now that I know what it's called, I can try to find a recipe. I've been browsing through recipe sites, but no luck so far. I'll see if I can find it in a Serbian or Turkish cookbook at the library. Yum! $3.50/lb seems very reasonable. A friend of mine is Serbian (and half Croatian) so maybe I can ask her mother to make me some!

I loved your pictures! The Serbian Pavilion is one of my favourite pavilions at Folklorama. We don't even watch the show anymore (it's the same every year) but we go in just to get food for take out! The women who do the cooking seem to look very pleased when we tell them we just came to pick up some food. Unfortunately, they don't do roast pig but the Slovenijan Pavilion does (two a night for a week) so we go there for that. I'm always very happy during Folklorama, and I gain a lot of weight !

[Bozic]

Hey, just found the recipe for

URMASICA:

Ingredients:

2 eggs

10 oz veg. oil

1- oz (white) sugar

wheat flower (not necessary, useful to "keep it together")

1 tbsp baking powder

Juice:

1 Liter (1 quart will do) spring water

500g sugar (white)

1 vanilla sugar (or 1 tbsp of pure Vanilla extract)

1 lemon

Mix all the ingredients from above (not ones from "juice" part), make sure it's not too tough - work it with your hands. Make these cookies similar to 'cevapi', but this time you can roll it with your hands, it will not affect the taste.

Bake on 275 'till they become light brown in color.

Juice: mix all ingredients and boil for 4-5 minutes, mixing all the time. Pour the hot juice over baked 'urmasice's, while still hot.

Serve cold.

Well, that took some digging around.

[srhcb]

And today is St. Sava's Day!

St. Sava is considered to be the founder of Serbia. Here is a newspaper article from an 1898 San Francisco newspaper concerning the celebration.

http://www.holy-trinity.org/history/1898/01.27.call.html

It's interesting that they used a "v" instead of the "r" in Ser(v)ian?

SB

PS: Bozic, I printed out your Urmasica recipe and showed it to my Mother. She hadn't thought about it in years, but remembers that it was my (late) Aunt Nada's childhood favorite. THANX!

[Athenaeus]

You forgot to add in your opening post that it was not Christmas for every Orthodox Christian but only for those who keep still the old calendar... it makes quite a difference. :-)

[Pan]

When was Christmas Day for Serbian Orthodox Christians who keep the new calendar?

[mjg]

When was Christmas Day for Serbian Orthodox Christians who keep the new calendar?

December 25th, however, I'm not sure that there are any Serbian Orthodox Christians who are "New Calendarists."

I'm a member of a Greek Orthodox community and we celebrate Christmas on December 25th. We do, however, still celebrate Easter (Pascha) according to the old calendar.

[Carrot Top]

Some pics of the big event...

Puttin on the spitz:

Starting to cook:

I couldn't wait to take a bite:

Clamped to the spit:

Not just another pretty face:

Next up, goat:

Stitching it closed:

Thanks for a great dinner David!

←

I wonder if anyone is preparing for this sort of festivities this year. . .

My favorite is roast goat.

[srhcb]

Heads Up!

Serbian Orthodox Christmas is next Sunday, January 7th.

My Serb relatives will gather at our cousin Dr Mike's place. I don't know if he'll roast a pig or not, bit it will probably be that or lamb, along with many appetizers, sides, breads, desserts and wines.

I'll let you know how it goes.

SB (has to do his Serbian Christmas shopping)(when everything's on sale )