Serbia

Serbia is one of the Balkan countries, located on the crossroads between East and West. Because of this, throughout history Serbian cuisine has been in close cultural contact with Greek, Byzantine and Eastern European influences. These mixes come together to form a hearty cuisine which focuses on natural and fresh ingredients.

Like Hungary, Serbian cuisine is based mostly on meat and dairy. Historians suggest that medieval Serbian food consisted mostly of milk, dairy and vegetables. Bread wasn’t eaten often, but when it was, poor people ate oat and rye based bread, while wheat was only for the rich.

Items we would usually buy, such as pickles, jelly, jam, Serbians prefer to make at home. Cooking is part of family traditions. The world for kitchen “kuća” literally means home. The kitchen is always the centrepiece of the house; the hearth where the family gathers near the fireplace.

Today, Serbians have 3 standard meals a day, but before the second half of the 19th century, breakfast didn’t exist. The monasteries used to only eat twice a day, and so did the largely orthodox population. Like in Poland, fasting had a significant effect on the methods of cooking, like basing most cooking on water. Strict religious fasting was expected in summer and winter, with no-fat days every Wednesday and Friday.

Nonetheless, the preparation of food maintained its importance. While Orthodoxy considers gluttony a great sin, preparation of food for others is considered to show unselfishness and love. So making food for your loved ones won this battle, and we are all better for it.

Not many places are well known for their National fruit, but Serbian National fruit is a plum. This plum prominently features in rakia, the National alcoholic drink. This can best be described as a fruity brandy.

The Corner Terrace London

As we make our last stop before we hit the Mediterranean, we find ourselves with a somewhat limited selection for Serbian restaurants in London. The Corner Terrace comes as one of the most recommended places (independently by 3 Serbians no less). When we arrived the restaurant appeared to us to give us a combination of South Europe instead. As you walk in, you can imagine you are actually in a small family-owned establishment in South Europe. It has that open and minimalistic, almost stark atmosphere about it, with simple furnishing and decorations. It even has an outside conservatory on the way in, with the old timers chatting over a cigarette.

Although the menu is a mixture of regions, they do have a couple of the more traditional Serbian dishes. The punjenje paprike is a bell pepper stuffed with minced meat. The karađorđeva šnicla is a rolled pork cutlet stuffed with cheese and coated in breadcrumbs; imagine mix of a Cordon Bleu and a Schnitzel. Both dishes were tasty and well prepared, and you got a good sizable portion on the plate. Interestingly, when we asked for stuffed cabbage instead of stuffed pepper, the waiter explained that it’s not the season for cabbage. It’s good to know that the seasonality of produce is taken into account.

The Corner Terrace also has vranac, a common wine that you’ll find in Serbian, but unfortunately we were not able to try this because of current supply issues. Luckily they had some very lovely Macedonian wine, which went down very easily.

As we have found in previous places, the dessert options were largely unauthentic, although they do have Baklava which does fit with all the different influences the cuisine had over the years. They also have that famous option of “Other Cake”. Yes, that’s an actual item on the menu. And to be honest, we don’t know how to describe it, it’s just “other cake”.

The staff were really welcoming and friendly, and in true Southern Europian style, they left us to our own devices until we caught their attention.

Overall this was a lovely chilled evening, with hearty food, and a small group of us having a chance to quietly chat and catch up with each other.

Recommendations

While we are only able to go to one place per country, we want to share with you some other awesome places we found/got recommended if you want to try it out and let us know

• Fulham Kitchen, SW6 6AZ - The only other place that we were recommended that had some Serbian dishes