It is usually prepared with barley, com or wheat flour. It is prepared by melting a chunk of lard or butter in a pan, preferably a copper one, and adding the flour, and salt and water. The mixture is then cooked well, or rather, fried well.

Possible special extra ingredients could be cheese, soft cheese, cream, or even eggs.

Cicvara, a rather rich dish with a high fat content, was well suited for the periods when there was difficult farm work to be done. Serbs considered it a particularly rich dish, and they made it a regular part of their Christmas meals.

Once, it used to be the custom for the family to look for their reflections in the shiny and oily surface of the cicvara, and the belief was that the person who could not see their reflection would not live to see the next Christmas.

And at present this traditional pie is frequently served as a kind of speciality both in restaurants and households.

The word ” pita ” originates from the Greek word ” petta “. The pie dough is made of wheat flour and water and ” jufka ” (Arabian ” ufqua “) meaning thin layers of dough. It is stretched over a rolling pin and then over a low table to make it completely thin.

All female children were tought this skill so that 10 year old girls can replace their mothers in that kind of work. Making the pies was a skill they were to learn in their very young years. After a while the thin layer of dough is stuffed, then rolled and arranged in a round casserole dish.

Some time ago the pies were prepared in iron pans for baking underneath the embers while today the are baked in modern ovens.

Stuffing for the pie can be of cheese and eggs ” cheese – pie “ also of potato ” potato – pie “ , of pumpkin ” pumpkin – pie “ and of eggs, cheese and greens ” green – pie “.

Even today the skills of a woman are frequently estimated by her success in making these kinds of pie.

Ceske

The very word is of a Persian origin and represents chiken meat that is cooked until it is completely soft.

The meal is prepared of beaten wheat which is coked with chicken meat until the meat falls apart completely from the bones.

It is served as a delicacy on family holidays and at wedings.

Housewives used to frequently make choice between different cakes: doboš, saher, Vasina, lincer, pusla, pišinger or srneća ledja.

Exciting stories come along with most of them.

Joseph Doboš ( 1847 – 1924 ) was very proud of the fact that his great grandfather served as a chef for Count Rakoši. He was himself a competent and a multi talented man who wrote several books and made several technical inventions. He became famous by his shop in Budapest in which people could find 60 types of cheese and 22 types of champagne at every moment, and he also managed to obtain delicacies or spices from all over the world. In 1887 he invented Doboš cake which has been prepared ever since by his recipe.

The sweetest of all attractions in Vienna, the icon of its cafes, saher cake ( Sacher torte ) is now 175 years old, but still a favourite cake worldwide. It was brought to Vojvodina from Austria. A lot of fake recipes exist, since the original recipe is a professional secret.

The story of Saher cake began in 1832 when the Austrian State Chancellor, Prince Metternich gave orders to his servants to create a new dessert for his guests.
As the chef was sick, the task was given to a 16 year old apprentice cook Franz Sacher. The result was a bitter – sweet chocolate cake, now the worldly known dessert.
Having spent many years working for count Esterhazi, Franz Sacher opened his own delicacies shop and offered his chocolate cake as well. It soon became the most favourite symbol of the town and set on a journey to conquer the world.

Respectable, handsome and elegant gentleman Vasa, resisted both to the sighs and irresistible glances of many girls who wanted to marry him by the timе he was 41. Then in 1908 he finally decided to stop with his merry life of a bachelor and got married. He was delighted to hear the news that he was going to become the father. But there were some complications and he took his wife to Vienna to see the doctors. Vasas mother in law was deeply grateful to her son in law for saving the life of her daughter and grandchild. Therefore, she wanted to do something for him. She prepared a splendid lunch for the young  family upon their return and a new tasty cake which got the name Vasina cake. The same cake has been prepared in many households ever since.

Pastry is prepared from white wheat flour. Its making has a long tradition especially for various occasions in both in form of large or small cakes like ” buthla “  , wedding cake, pidgin cake, cakes with poppy seed, walnuts and
cheese.

In Vojvodina pastries are also made of leavened dough, as štrudel, taken from German cuisine.

Among the most famous is the štrudel with poppy seeds, whose making is a demanding one regarding preparation conditions. Special mortar and pestle were used to pulverise poppy seed, which had to be hit 365 times and it was done by males only. Poppy seeds were put into the thin phyllo and some raisins and sour cream were added. The draught should be prevented in the room where štrudel is made. Also no entrance is allowed to the room during the preparation. Only large quantities of štrudel is made. Besides štrudel with poppy seed there are also štrudel with cheese, walnuts, cherries and raisins.

Another famous pastry of leavened dough, i. e. fried dough foods, is doughnuts, sprinkled with icing sugar or filled with apricot jam.

Some types of unleavened dough or phyllo dough pies are made like gibanica with cheese, cherries, apples or semolina. The most famous pie is bundevara ( pumpkin pie ) or ludajnjača.

During winter days salčići, made of puff pastry, filled with homemade jam and sprinkled with icing sugar, are often found at the dessert table.

Common pastry is called lenja pita which is made with apples, cherries and poppy seed.

German population introduced the making of kuglof, a unique, old style cake, from their cuisine. Our grandmothers used to prepare it as well. It was unavoidable item at every Sunday desert table. Today, Sremski Karlovci is a place famous for this cake, since numerous; tourists buy it either to try it here or to take it away.

One of quickly prepared treats is breaded apples or jabuke u šlafroku, which is served, sprinkled with icing sugar or drizzle with melted chocolate.

If there were no cakes, kitnikez ( prepared of quince and walnuts ) , boiled fruit juices, dried plums, walnuts and honey were served.

Rigojanci ( Rigo Jancsi  ) is a traditional chocolate sponge cake with chocolate cream and cognac which dates bасk to the beginning  of the the 20th century. At the end of the 19th century the whole Europe knew about the love adventure of the first violinis Rigo Jancsi and the Princess Chimay.

Rigo Jancsi was born in Hungary in a Roma music family. As a child he used to play the violin and later played with his оwn band worldwide. In 1895 he was playing in a noble French restaurant, where Prince Chimay dined with his wife. The young woman was delighted to hear the music and songs and she started coming more frequently to the restaurant. After a while, she liked more than just the music and soon afterwards a scandal broke. She abandoned her husband and two juvenile children and escaped to Hungary with Rigo Jancsi. 
She gave  her fiancee a fabulous wedding ring. Several years later when the scandal hushed up in the eminent circles in Hungary, they returned to Budapest.
In a pastry shop, where they had coffee and cakes, the violinist wanted to flatter to his wife and asked the pastry chef to make a cake suitable for his darling’ s beauty. Romantic violinist demanded the cake to be as white as his beloved one and also as dark as her hair is. However, the cake was given the name for the first violinist, whose origins are in Banja Kanjiža.
Their love did not last for long, but the dessert kept its position within the group of most favourite world desserts.

There are also small cookies like: damen kapric, zerbo kоске, puslice, padobranci, vanilice, gurabije, oblatne, krempita, princes krofne, medenjaci, bele kiflice . . .

Large game was highly respected, owing to their beauty and the skills needed for their hunting.
The prestigious moments were lavish dinners for hunters and game dishes which were the proof  of enormous significance of hunting for centuries.

The rules of hunters resemble those of knights and require that the trophies testimony about their hunting skills. Moreover, the success of a hunt is expressed in culinary art, the feast for the hunt participants, a typical garnering for males.

Game  meat goes along with sweet taste. Thus, for example game dishes are served with cranberry sauce of  sweet – sour taste, and venison stew is served with dry plums to add flavour to the refined dish.
When hunters’ specialties are being prepared, hunting stories are being told . . . At the table you may find: venison, hare meat, wild boar meat, pheasant, quail, partridge, wild geese . . .

The dishes also found in Vojvodina are: venison paprikaš with red wine, wild boar, meat gulaš with white wine and smoked sausages, partridge stuffed with goose liver, wild ducks in sour cream, pheasant in red wine, quail with sauerkraut and Vojvodina style hunters’ steak.

Pork meat

On Sundays, the most frequent dish on the table is whole roasted chicken, chicken legs, pork chops or pork ribs roasted in its own sauce, breaded steaks ( various meat ) and meatballs.

Particular types of meat are prepared for special occasions. For Christmas it is goose stuffed with apples, chestnut, walnuts, and dried plums and roasted with garlic under its wings.
Side dishes with meat are various vegetables in form of cuspajz or djuveč: peas, grean beans, spinach, savoy cabbage, carrots, and courgettes.
 

Potatoes are frequently prepared in various ways: roasted in skin ( u čakšire ) , bakers’ style, fried, mashed, etc.

On workdays cooked meals including both meat and vegetables are at the table: gulaš, paprikaš, beans, stuffed peppers, sarma, sarmica, cabbage or sauerkraut, pilav, mousaka, etc.

Greece is the geographical origin of ” green ” sarmica ( Dolmades ) , which is made of grapevine leaves in several forms here in Vojvodina. Instead of the grapevine leafs, various sorts of cabbage leafs are used, or sometimes leafs of horseradish. The meat used for sarmica is minced beef and pork in equal proportion. Sarmica is served with sour milk or sour cream.

Hungarians were pioneers in inventing various forms of meet preservation. The meat pieces were boiled with available vegetables until every single drop of water evaporated. Later the dish was improved into three more
dihes:

■ Perklet – a drier variant of gulaš, the meat is more fried than cooked.

■ Paprikaš – a variant of gulaš, with added flour and large quantity of sour cream.

■ Tokanj – Erdelyi variant of differently spiced gulaš, the product of influence of both Hungarian and Romanian cuisine.

Sekelji gulaš ( Szekelygulas )

This is a traditional winter dish of the poor population.
There are several stories about its origin, here is one of them.
One evening in winter of 1846, Imre Sekeljy, a public notary in Pešt, came to a small restaurant ” Music clock ” for  hisual meal, but rather late. The restaurant staff managed to collect some leftovers of the dishes for that day’ s offer: sauerkraut, several spoons of paprikaš with pork meat and covered it with sour cream. They were all worried not to disappoint or make angry the respectable guest and they offered him the dish with fear. To their surprise, he enjoyed it and asked to have it next time, too. The cook and the restaurant owner tried their quick ” specialty ” and were delighted with the taste of new combination of ingredients. Soon it was added to the restaurant menu. It turned out that the renowned Hungarian dish was invented by chance.

One of quickly prepared and widespread dishes that you can try in Vojvodina is ” bećar ” paprikaš. Experienced cook ladies from Bunjevci population prepare ” ćoravi paprikaš “ the dish without meat, mostly prepared on workdays and served with cabbage salad and apple sauce.

Numerous rivers, lakes and fishponds render the abundance of fresh water fish : carp, catfish, zander and crucian carp. Therefore, there are fish broths and fish stews as well as roasted fish at the lunch table in Vojvodina.

You may also try : paprikaš with carp or catfish, Apatin style carp, catfish with sauerkraut, Srem style sturgeon, pike  in ” mundir ” , Vojvodina style roasted crucian carp, zander with butter and potatoes, catfish djuveč, catfish heads in white wine, etc.

On of the distinguished dishes is drunken carp. Why drunken? Because it is the scraped carproasted in sauce prepared beforehand of finely chopped garlic and parsley, grated carrots with addition of spices and white wine.

An antecedent of sauces in Vojvodina was cicvara ( mandara ) , made of  wheat flour cooked on fat with addition of salt and water.
 

Sauces in its original form were borrowed from Austrian cuisine, which had also borrowed them from French cuisine.

Sauces were made of flour cooked in fat with addition of dill weed, cooked tomato paste, cherries, horseradish, garlic, pickled cucumbers or peppers.

One of distinguished soups in Vojvodina is the soup made on Sunday, prepared from various meat types: domestic guinea fowl, chicken, beef, veal, duck, goose, turkey, pheasant, cock and pigeon.

Domestic noodles are added to soups, such as: knedle, fiekice, derviš and tarana.

The word for broth in Serbian is of Turkish origin and means ” fatty water “ which is obtained by boiling meat. It has been accepted by the population living south of the Sava and the Danube.

Various types of broths have been prepared since the 19th century: cibera or kiselica ( cibera is a juice made of wheat bran poured with hot water ) , beans broth, potato broth, and hot gulaš broth with ” čipetke ” , etc.

The meat types used for broth preparation in Vojvodina are: lamb, chicken, pheasant, hare, etc.
Among the most favourite are: white chicken broth, tomato broth, farmer’ s broth and fish or fisherman’ s broth.

Fish and fisherman’ s broth is prepared of various small fish: carp, pike and white fish ( if the broth is made of bigger fish, only the tail and head are used ) with addition of onion, parsley, celery, bay leaf , black whole grain pepper and paprika.