Many years ago, in the aptitude test, in the geography test, when asked where Romania is located, a student answered: "Our picturesque country is located north of Bulgaria". It is, perhaps, one of the nicest school "pearls", but which can also be the cradle of important debates.
Ggeographically, only 5% from Romania's territory (the Dobrogean territory below the Danube and below the Sfântul Gheorghe arm) are in the Balkans. But the very establishment of the boundaries of the Balkan Peninsula remains a controversial subject, and if the bolding of some borders on the map is a work that requires precision, the limitation of a concept such as Balkanism cannot be limited by conventional borders. Also 5% and from the territory of Turkey (the western part that includes the historical center of Istanbul or Edirne - the former Adrianople) belong to the Balkans. But are they Balkan or Oriental? 23% from the territory of Serbia, the one north of the Danube is not in the Balkans, but it is the Balkan Serbian Banat or is it? But we?
The Balkans are problematic, motley, proud, savory, splendid. They are both oriental and western, but their quelque chose is simple: they are Balkan, neither too oriental nor too western. Normally, at the extremes the generalizations fade and the belonging pulls towards other cultural-geographic frameworks. The Balkans are Mediterranean and Danubian, they are Orthodox, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim. They get fired up quickly, but you can count on them. They are hospitable and good companions. They are brownies and vices, they are dreamers and nationalists.
Is Romanian cuisine Balkan?
The Balkans, long called the powder keg of Europe, could be the old continent's cauldron of sarmals, jumars or soup. Grill with small, cevapi or kebabs from this part of the world.
Without pretending to answer a question, I think, defining for us: is Romanian cuisine Balkan / how Balkan is Romanian cuisine?, but trying to identify the food that unites and/or divides us, journalist Cristian Iohan Ștefănescu and with this year I went on an expedition of over a hundred days (broken down) through all the Balkan countries, with the idea of writing a study of comparative regional gastronomy. But until then, we've invited some really cool people to tell us about their gastronomic Balkans.
Caesar John (vinul.ro) is my "partner in crime" - as we call each other - in most enogastronomic projects. We initiated the initiative that led to the declaration of the National Day of Gastronomy and Wines in Romania, we organized dozens of profile events, we wrote tens of thousands of words, in our brains in the mornings of the last years, on WhatsApp and shared countless beers and bottles with wine. Last but not least, I enjoyed ouzo and especially retsina on the beach in Greece, a drink he recalls below.
PS we will soon resume the enogastronomic newsletter "Recommended by curator & connoisseur & friend" which you can access subscribe here
"Looking back with wormwood" as "Tearfully a chance was passing"
Few drinks have fascinated me in recent years like wormwood (well, that's after I witnessed the "Hungarian-Romanian war of the palinci", where in 2007 I had to admit that the neighbors - non-Balkans, yes, Cosmin! - they have it better). I've been watching wormwood like movies for years - hence the title references to the names of two famous old motion pictures.
Practically, wormwood and its cruel fate pain me: from the beginning and as a result of insufficiently judged requirements by the representatives of producer associations, the Romanian legislator imposed some aberrant fiscal and technological conditions (credentials as for spirits and a mandatory minimum residual sugar which - sent it into the sphere of slightly "gluey" bitter sweets and canceled a good part of the tonicity that defines it); later, as the first two brave producers demonstrated that the public had a healthy appetite for this drink, its situation was somehow relaxed by the legislator (in terms of sugar, not the authorization files, which remain a nightmare). I was fascinated, I was saying, especially seeing how well it goes with a somewhat similar drink of the "bad" neighbors - retsina: also based on wine, but flavored with pine resin, instead of Artemisia Absinthium, as in our case ( or the Bulgarians). At them, at the Greeks, you can find several options of retsina in any restaurant menu or whole meters of shelves with different brands in supermarkets, in half or three-quarter liter bottles, in PET or in bag-in-box, with prices starting from 3 euros and going up to 20, in the case of the most elevated products. Here, the winemakers themselves see wormwood as a Cinderella - but not one who could become a princess, but one who can neither have the brains, nor the physical attributes, nor the luck to escape the cruel fate that they too have book it So – while the Greeks enjoy selling probably tens of millions of bottles of retsina annually and making it a traditional, strongly differentiated and therefore unique product and going to the bank laughing at the end of the year – we it remains to smack our lips slightly and vaguely superior and to ignore that wormwood could also be a part of a Romanian experience that could, thank you, be under the big umbrella of a possible "country brand". Which brand, anyway, is not seen as a set of values, but only as a logo that we are still waiting for someone to "make it" and "give it to us"...
Main photo credit: Ouzo © George Tsartsianidis | Dreamstime.com
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