When Cheese Met Cream
These two humble and accessible all-season ingredients we all take for granted are the ABC of peasant food in Zagreb surroundings. In the old days, every rural household owned at least one cow to provide the family with fresh dairy. The citizens of Zagreb lived off the produce made and delivered to the city by small-time farmers from the surrounding villages. Every day at dawn, dozens of hard-working peasant women would put their goodies in a big basket and hop on the first train to the big city. They would take their spot at Zagreb’s open markets, like Dolac, and wait for the first customers. And there's a wonderful local word, impossible to translate accurately, for these diligent women who fed Zagreb - kumica.
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As a big thank you to all kumicas, a statue in their honour was put on Dolac market in 2006. Today they’re a bit modernized, naturally, and old-school kumicas are almost endangered species, but you can still find them in the open-air dairy section of Dolac and other big markets. People go to them for organic, home-made dairy produce, eggs, noodles, corn bread and similar, and when they find a reliable kumica, they bond and stick to her as long as possible.
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Let’s go back to the beginning - cottage cheese and cream. These two things comprise one of the most common and typical cold starters in north-western Croatia, sir i vrhnje. As simple as it sounds, if the material is right, you’re encountering a real delicacy. It is served everywhere, from mountain huts (I’ve had some of the best ones there) to hotels and upscale national restaurants. Less is more and there’s no need to ruin the simplicity, but to boost up the gourmet experience, you can add some toasted pumpkin seeds and pumpkin seed oil on top, or sprinkle the mixture with paprika, maybe some garlic, too.
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Apart from being a dish on its own, cream and cheese are the main ingredients in another iconic dish you’ll be offered in Zagreb. They are the stuff that štrukli are made of. Basically, it’s just thin and fluffy filo dough stuffed with a mixture of cottage cheese, cream and eggs. It looks like a rectangular pillow, and then it can be either boiled, cooked in a soup, baked... It sounds simple again, but to prepare štrukli the way it is supposed to be made, making your own dough, you have to be the master of technique. This versatile dish covers all sections of the menu. While you can find processed, frozen versions in all supermarkets, hand-made štrukli from the Bistro at Esplanade Hotel are considered to be the Holy Grail of štrukli.
Even though štrukli are regarded as something very traditional and sacred, not to be messed with, it doesn’t hurt to spice things up a bit. Last year a cozy little place called La Štruk opened in the touristy Skalinska Street. Smart move! Something completely different, you wonder how come no one thought of that before - a place dedicated to štrukli and štrukli alone. Along with the classic ones, they make štrukli with blueberries, walnuts and honey, nettle, paprika, depending on the season. While traditionalists may be shocked, it’s quite interesting to see the many faces and talents of the good ol’ štrukli, as long as the basic ingredients and preparation remain true to tradition.
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Once again, these two Zagreb’s signature dishes prove that the timeless principle of ‘back to basics’ works best in modern-day cooking, especially nowadays when it’s so important to distinguish yourself and stay authentic in the globalized world. Therefore, same as in times long gone, as long as there’s enough fresh cottage cheese and cream for everybody, we can be happy.
Image credit: Taste of Croatia
Header image credit: Taste of Croatia
Author: Taste of Croatia