The most popular items are pickled garlic and spicy marmalades.
Just like Dalmatians eat olives, people from Baranja enjoy their garlic. Sometimes they eat it fresh, and there is hardly a dish which does not involve at least some garlic. That is why the Grabar family from Darda has decided to make pickled garlic, which keeps it fresh for the long winter months, reports Večernji List on October 6, 2018.
“You can also use it to make meat taste better,” says Gordana Grabar, who together with her husband Josip brought her garlic to Ban Jelačić Square in Zagreb, where the fourth Fair of Winter Food and Indigenous Products was opened on Friday. Until Sunday, about a hundred producers from all Croatian counties will sell their products, offering homemade pickled peppers and cucumbers, jams, honey and bee products, spices, teas, meat, olive oils and many other tasty products.
In addition to well-known products, many are offering something a little different, often based on the recipes they have created themselves. Thus, the Grabar stand offers spicy marmalade for 25 kuna. It is produced by cooking spicy peppers which are then chopped up. “It is a supplement when cooking or can be added directly to the dish if someone wants to eat more spicy food,” say the Grabars, who also offer the so-called hunter’s “ajvar,” much hotter version of the regular one. It costs just 20 kuna.
Dinka Ištvan, her father Zvonko and their friend Dragutin Crepić produce hot sauces with unusual combinations of ingredients. In Vinkovci, they cultivate more than 20 sorts of hot peppers. The most exotic product is a mix of cherry sauce and habanero peppers, which is usually eaten with venison. They also have another sauce made of ginger.
“We have created these sauces because we all love to eat spicy food. When we offered them to friends, they reacted so positively that we thought we could put them on the market,” says Dinka, whose sauces range from 20 to 50 kuna.
Mirjana Stancarić makes hot spreads, and her main product is “hrenada”, made of horseradish, apples and ginger. “It goes wonderfully with meat, cheeses, salmon… We also produce our own mustard,” says Stancarić, who lives in Čučerje.
Another hit of the fair is “lumblija,” a cake from Korčula whose recipe is 200 years old. It is sold by Sanja Protić and her daughter Josipa. “This cake is made on the western part of the island, usually ahead of the All Saints’ Day. On the part of the island which looks toward the island of Hvar, the ‘mortar’ plant is growing from rocks near the sea. It can be used in various salads,” explains Protić.
Translated from Večernji List (reported by Petra Balija).
