August 19, 2018 – It is a country where a gentle breeze can kill you, and where you should never go out barefoot or with wet hair. And ladies wanting to protect their ovaries should beware where they sit. Welcome to the curious world of Croatian illnesses and cures.
Just over six years ago, I was invited by the very nice team at Murvica to a special lunch at their rustic house in Humac. Apart from being invited to celebrate a Humac feast day with a spot of lunch, they also wanted me to see their new bathroom, the very first in the village. You can see it here. 
As is often the way at such events, there are no cold ones on offer, with the preferred poison of choice the local homemade wine, with a choice of white or red. I got stuck into the red with gusto and was rather enjoying my lunch when I noticed this chap drinking something which looked a little like strawberry milkshake. I asked what it was and was told that he was drinking a mixture of red wine and goat milk.
WTF?
Bikla, it is called, I was casually informed. And he has been drinking it since the age of five, as have many locals. Very good for the kids. Although I live under the motto of ‘I will try anything once’, there are certain limits. A little research and I discover there is even a Biklijada, or red wine and goat milk drinking festival in Vrgorac each year. Amazing.
When I returned home that night, I asked my father-in-law if he had ever tried bikla. Well, yes of course. Both that and the raw yolk of an egg in a glass of prosek were common as a child in Dalmatia – great for the immune system.
Yeuch!
Over the years, I have mellowed my sanitised city ways and blended (well, at least partially) my previous way of life and come to accept the more natural way of life in Croatia, where the recipes and remedies of Grandma continue to rule.
Over an excellent lunch on Korcula the other day, one of my dining companions was waxing lyrical about the healing properties of cabbage leaves on painful joints, and I decided that the time had come to do a piece on the weird and wonderful world of Croatian illnesses and incredible cures.
I posted on my Facebook page to see if anyone had any suggestions, fully intending to then do some further research before publishing. But so good was the response (many thanks to all), that I simply hand you over to these wonderful gems. I think the basic lesson when travelling to Croatia is – don’t forget a bottle of rakija in your rucksack.
You’ll catch pneumonia if you drink cold water while you’re hot (i.e. after some physical activity)
Rakija as a universal cure and therapy from just about anything, from toothache to reumathic pain
Eat onions to reduce fever
Potato chips (raw) applied as a cold bandage to reduce fever
Rubbing salt into a tooth cavity to reduce pain.
Eating an uncooked potato will give you a fever – cured only by copious quantities of rakija.
Drying kids clothes outside during the night will let witches in clothes therefore the kid will cry all the time
Cough remedies: 1) melt sugar in a tiny pot and add milk, mix until homogeneous, then drink. 2) warm up some oil in a pan and use bandages type baby diaper to soak it up, put on baby’s chest overnight.
Blocked nose: put some pig lard under the nostrils
Sour throat or palate burns – use propolis
Bee sting cure – rub with mixture of (any) three herb leaves.
People love to do home remedies, especially tinctures with local herbs (for burns), they still tend to say to put wine as anesthetic on baby’s gums for teething, rakija is ultimate cure for anything (to prevent Gi diseases by drinking before meals, to make above mentioned tinctures like ‘genciana’ for gastric problems, as soothing compressees etc), onion beside your head while fighting congestion, olive oil on every type of skin problem (especially for babies), cabbage leaves for swelling (of limbs or breasts post birth), home made teas with sage for any infection in the mouth, old time antipyretic use of cherry juice or willow tree tea…plenty of stories in the Etnografski muzej
To keep your immune system up during winter, you finely chop garlic and then add it to honey. Let it rest for 24 hours before first use and then eat a teaspoon of that every morning. Also, rakija can cure anything from a cut finger to a heart attack. When not injured or sick, use it to clean windows, glasses, silverware or other metals, your face and pretty much anything else.
Also, if you have a tiny baby that won’t sleep, dip your pinky in rakija and let the baby suck on that. Not really sure if people actually did this, but they sure as hell talked out it.
Additionally, if you have a more serious wound and no access to modern medicine, wash the wound with rakija, put some spider web on the wound and wrap the whole thing in a piece of cloth.
Garlic for absolutely everything you may have. Also rakija or other suspicious liquors.
Change your swimsuit every time you get out of the sea (I should be dead already, as a Brazilian we wear the same bikini all day long at the beach).
Wear an undershirt to protect your kidneys.
Never leave more than one window open in the house/car. Propuh kills. (When violence is not an issue ha ha ha, Brazilians leave 4 windows car open, propuh is a blessing and helps circulate air).
Have your period? Don’t wash your hair (arghhh).
Never walk barefoot.
Air conditioning cannot be installed in the room, will kill you while you sleep.
No cold shower water or cold sea for pregnant women.
How could I forget… JUGO gives you headaches and other psychological problems.
Draft. Draft, or propuh, is the equivalent of squatting grandma of death, holding babushka in one hand and AK47 in the other, in her traditional Adidas dress.
If you sit on cold concrete, you will – get bladder infection if you’re a male, or your ovaries will inflame if you’re female. Even in the summer.
If there’s a sudden violent weather, it means that the kids were naughty in the eyes of the Lord and have to be sent to bed immediately. (happened to me only once)
Orahovica ( walnut brandy) as a cure for stomach upsets. Baka swore by it.
Soak potatoes in loza/rakija and stick them in your socks to wear overnight to get rid of a fever … thankfully I did not have to undergo this one, but every toothache growing up was met with a handkerchief doused in some serious loza “moonshine” that was made by the men in our garage … for that reason I can’t stand the smell of loza, it reminds me of toothaches … finally douse a head kerchief with loza and wrap around one’s forehead Rambo style and eat garlic to fight a cold, flu, etc.
Re “diseases” – I successfully ignored the propuh and falling ill due to wet hair and bare feet. Have literally tuned all that out over the years (usually it was the older teta crowd that was on my case). But what got to me? Girlfriends who freaked out on me when we were in our 20s that I’ll damage my kidneys or ovaries or both if I sat on a curb or a stairwell or the like. Have to admit I started to feel some pains after awhile (which I still attribute to psychosomatic sources, i.e., the friends yelling at me to stand up or at least find a blanket or the like to sit on. This is when I used to live in ZG and to this day I find myself warily sitting on curbs though I still don’t believe in the kidney / ovary damage :-/)
Use butter to heal nasty bumps on the head. Had a chance to test the remedy on my kid this summer and it actually worked
Calluses: a leaf of ivy put with its underside against the place, wrap it around the toe, then with a strip of cloth and tie it with sewing thread. Leave for 24 hours, it should fall off. Remedy of my grandmother.
Add čuvarkuća (houseleek) drops in the ear for ear infections as a kid
In Croatian folk medicine there is one basic principle for healing – compresses from all sorts of plants and other stuff (like milk with vinegar or yogurt…) will “izvući” – draw out the pain, the swelling, the illness itself, a poison made by illness or even curses or the consequences of evil eyes. If you add healing properties of rakia – travarica (or wine) – you get holistic treatment. You just must know which plant draws out which illness, but travarica or rakia are universal, like aspirin.
Lavanda in housethe for a nice sleep and anti mosquitos and ‘tarice’ – moth..
Raw onion on wasp sting, really does work.
NEVER go swimming less than 2hours (precisely) after eating or else…
Sunburns: put St. John’s wort in a clear bottle of olive oil and keep 3 weeks in the sun. Rub in
Sunburns: gently tap cold yoghurt on them!
Never ever should you wash your hair during menstruation period.
Never eat cheese without some bread on the side.
Wine is good for kids, it will strengthen their blood.
Cabbage leaves are great for inflamed breasts during breastfeeding
Cough – carmelised sugar then add to milk carefully, then add a few leaves of sage. Leave for 10-15 minutes and drink.
Cough – blackberry leaves boiled make great tea to cure coughs
Garlic, pancetta, wine and rakija cure it all.
Piss on the open wound, and put dirt on it. (dirt for growing plants, not dirt dirt – we are not savages)
And perhaps the best advice of all…
Simply get out of the sun and stay in the shade…. gradually go out until you get brown and after that no problem at all….
Got some medical advice to add? Leave a comment below or email us at [email protected]
