If there is
one thing my mother loves in the world more than her children (although
possibly not her job) it is Campari. A treat when on holiday, straight, over
ice with a Mediterranean view and her children cooking the dinner. So it was
inevitable when my sister and I and our 4 friends turn up at a holiday house in
Croatia at 10pm after 6 hours or so of travelling, the only drink we had to
offer to them on the first introduction to my parents was, Campari?
Luckily our
friends soon developed a (possibly polite) taste for Campari and we settled
down into a routine of beach, card games, scrabble, aperitifs and 3-course
dinners. Since this was the same place as we had visited the year before I knew
exactly how the lie of the land was food wise. Each morning my mum and I (and
occasional extras – although the number of volunteers diminished as the holiday
went on and the nights got later-) would go down to the fish market followed by
a coffee, veg market and the custard doughnut shop, a staple of every Croatian
holiday. The veg market in Starigrad, Hvar is a wonderful variety of fresh
fruit and veg, olive oil and honey. Except for the clouds of terrifying wasps
food lovers paradise. I was especially popular by the end of the week with our
chosen stall (possibly due to the mountains of fruit and veg I bought each
day), so much so, we would be presented with huge handfuls of grapes, which,
once shaken clean of the ravenous wasps, would be gratefully received. The lady
and I, although hindered by language barriers, communicated in a lovely mix of
sign language, Italian and basic English. Whatever I did, she seemed charmed,
and gave me a hug at the end of the week.
I had many
glamorous assistants in the kitchen, from the actual keen cooks (who even
gutted about 100 sardines at one point..) to the more occasional cameos (who
discovered whipping egg whites is very time consuming..) We ended up eating a
huge array of dishes. The barbecue was put to good use (the part of the cooking
considered ‘man’s work’),
with a favourite being the grilled sardines, fresh
from the morning. The veg ran out every day as we made vats of
roasted veg (oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, garlic, rosemary), cherry tomatoes
(capers, onions, basil, oil, vinegar, sugar, garlic, salt and pepper) and potatoes
(oil, garlic, rosemary, salt, pepper). One of the unusual dishes we had was
Thai pork belly and egg fried rice cooked by one of my sisters friends,
delicious and my dad didn’t even complain at the spiciness! We even attempted
various puddings, such as tiramisu, peach tarte tatin and honey and lavender pannacotta
using local produce. We even tried to make Croatian delicacies, of which the
Ajav sauce was a big hit. Roasted aubergine and blackened red pepper pureed
with oil, paprika, salt, pepper, sugar and vinegar. Another delicious invention
was the fava bean dip. A sort of chunky houmous made by boiling the beans with
lemons and mashing them up with olive oil, salt and pepper.
The most interesting foodie
experience in Croatia though had to be the sun dried tomatoes. One of my
friends had bought her own homemade sun dried tomatoes that were so good we had
polished them off by the second lunchtime. The only thing to do was make some
more. So on my friend’s instruction we cut up cherry tomatoes, salted them, put
rosemary on top and laid them in the sun for a couple of days. Hey Presto they
shrivelled up! We washed them in white wine vinegar (or what we assumed it was
– it was called alkoholic and looked like vinegar-) and jarred them with olive
oil, garlic and rosemary, delicious.
It seemed such a shame when we
had to go home to leave our little routine, but I held on till the very last
minute and had the leftover roasted vegetables for breakfast on the ferry home
while the others had pastries. I love roasted veg almost as much as my mother
loves Campari.
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