Eating Out in Bosnia: The Best Meals of My Life

I know, it’s not Tuesday but when life gave me lemons this week, I had to turn them into Lemsip to treat a change-of-season cold that suddenly appeared. Speaking of food, this week I am joining Emma, Rebecca and Kelly on their monthly travel link up. We’re talking about the best meals we had while travelling and I couldn’t think of a better reason to return to Bosnia! In a way, I’m pleased because I’m not a foodie blogger (I far prefer to eat food than write about it) but I had always wanted to share these culinary experiences.

Restaurant Šadrvan – Stari Grad, Mostar

I remember the Saturday afternoon we arrived in Mostar as if it were yesterday. I had seen so many photos of the old town but somehow remained unprepared for its beauty. The hostess of the Villa Anri encouraged us to enjoy drinks on the roof of the hotel but as we gazed down into the old town, we simply couldn’t wait to go and explore. We asked our hostess to recommend a restaurant with authentic Bosnian-Herzegovinian food and she wasted no time in recommending the Restaurant Šadrvan.

I will always remember that afternoon in Mostar. We sat under the shade of the trees in the Šadrvan restaurant, watching as people milled around the market stalls or began the steep incline towards the old bridge. It was a hot, lazy May afternoon with the temperatures already in the 30s yet there was an undercurrent of anticipation, as if we need only wait for the cool dusk to come and the evening festivities to begin.

Located where Jusovina Street meets the main path through the old town, Šadrvan (meaning ‘fountain’) surrounds an old Ottoman-style fountain.

As I opened the menu and paged through the options, I had to laugh at the name of the dish that we were to order. Part of what attracted me to the Bosnian language in the first place was that so often, words are similar enough that you can derive their meaning; it’s just that words sound so much more lyrical in Bosnian. I ordered the ‘Nacionalna Plate’ for two and thrilled at the way in which the words rolled off my tongue.

The food of the Balkan region is well known for its variety of stuffed vegetables and this meal was no different. At €18, it was incredibly well-priced and included japraka and dolme – peppers, onions and vine leaves stuffed with rice and meat. The meal came with loads of ćevapi which are minced lamb sausages, small savoury corn bread cakes known as ‘Bosnian cookies’ and đuveč, a savoury vegetable dish. The dish was completed with flat bread, boiled potatoes, rice and sour cream.

I’ve often tried to describe the effect that this dish had on us but seem to fail each time. I can say that it was so good that it puts every other dish I have had since to shame. That my mouth is watering as I write and that I’d climb on a plane right now if I could to sample that piece of Bosnian heaven again. It was simply delicious and when we were looking for somewhere to eat the following afternoon, we could not help but return to the Šadrvan again to eat the exact same dish.

It was also here that we sampled Bosnian coffee for the first time and began what would become quite an obsession over the following five days. As I tasted that first cup of sweet, rich coffee with its gravy-like consistency, I knew that I would never forget that moment. And no matter how I’d grown up with Turkish coffee, I now knew that Bosnian coffee was the best on the planet.

Restaurant Inat Kuča – Sarajevo

After such an auspicious introduction to local cuisine, Stephen and I were initially disappointed with the food in Sarajevo. We had prepared ahead, consulted Trip Advisor and gone to the most popular restaurant in town and while the food was good and the service fantastic, it simply didn’t measure up to our experience in Mostar.

Thankfully, we met up with Kenan, a local tour guide and he recommended the Restaurant Inat Kuča for an authentic Bosnian experience.

I chose the dish Sarajevski Sahan and it did not disappoint. It was a mix of Bosnian specialties and again featured stuffed peppers, onions and vine leaves, as well as ćevapi and bamija which is a Bosnian veal stew. We noticed the slight change in the food from Mostar, which is in the Herzegovinian region, with the introduction of veal and stews.

You might have noticed in the dishes above that Bosnians love their meat and so do South Africans! Stephen was in his element with the dish he ordered, a mješano meso or mixed meat for one. Yes, all of that meat was for one person and cost an incredible 20KM or €10! My dish cost 14KM or €7.

The story of the Inat Kuča or ‘house of despite’ is an incredible one. The house was once located on the other side of the river Miljacka but in 1895 city officials wanted to demolish it to make way for the new city hall. The old man who owned the house was very stubborn and insisted that they dismantle his house and rebuild it, brick for brick, on the other side of the river. And so it is now, slightly lost in translation, the house of spite or despite.

It is a little difficult to describe exactly why we loved this restaurant so much and what it meant to us. We had spent the morning touring Sarajevo with Kenan, learning about the siege, driving down Sniper Alley and visiting the Tunnel Museum. It was a lot to absorb and I can recall us being lost in our thoughts for a while as we relaxed and enjoyed the superb food. I would say that it was a moment in time, a sensory experience which is burned in my heart and my memory and I can so easily recall the quiet and calm of that afternoon, the importance to us and, of course, the tastes.

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Lost in the Hills of Sarajevo

Looking back, we must have assumed the typical pose of lost travellers. We'd walked out of the Bascarsija (old town Sarajevo),  over the river and straight up the road towards the mountains surrounding Sarajevo. We slowed to a halt, took note of a rare street sign and then poured over a map to find our bearings.

A man had approached us asking, "do you speak English? Are you lost?"  I smiled widely and replied, "yes, and sort of". "We were trying to get lost", I clarified and he smiled knowingly. "Well", he said as he turned around and pointed to a narrow flight of stairs disappearing into the distance, "if you take those stairs they'll lead to the road that goes right around the hills. Any time you want to come down again, just descend another flight of stairs and the road will take you back down to the city". Perfect. We could get well and truly lost now.

As we parted with warm thanks and good wishes, I asked the man whether he was Irish. "Yes", he replied, "but I live here now". He wasn't the first person to say that to us in the past two days and I was starting to realise that Sarajevo is a very difficult city to leave.

I was just wondering to myself whether there might be a statistical correlation between speaking English and being lost when it began to rain. Of course, who else would be out walking during a thunderstorm with only a waterproof jacket and no umbrella?

We climbed the steps towards the motorway and turned at the last minute to walk down a narrow pathway leading behind the rows of houses. The stone path was uneven, overgrown and slick with rain. Most people would rush for shelter but incredibly, Stephen and I slowed down and stopped to drink in the views of the city below.

As we continued walking, movement caught my eye and I looked up to see a young teenage boy waving at me from his bedroom window. "Zdravo!", I greeted, the Bosnian greeting for hello. "Zdravo!", he replied but when I asked him how he was, "kako ste?" he disappeared.

We rounded his house and then continued along on the path below when I realised he had popped out of another window. We greeted each other again and then his attention was taken by his neighbour who popped out of her window to chat to him. As we turned another corner on the winding path, I turned back around and he waved enthusiastically at me. I was strangely touched by this friendly, welcoming and unaffected boy and waved back before he disappeared from view.

Walking along these narrow pathways, it is impossible to avoid seeing evidence of the war and siege that took place here twenty years ago. There are signs everywhere and many houses are burned out or encased in scaffolding or plastic. But there are far more signs that Bosnians have moved beyond this, that they choose to define their lives rather than their past.

We soon came to a main walkway. To our left steep, narrow stairs lead back up into the hills while we could see the main road leading back into the city on our right. We were very wet and Stephen asked me which way he wanted to go. "Well", I began, "if we turn right, our adventure is over but if we turn left then it will continue". I knew that I had to let him choose, walking along slippery, uneven pathways in the Sarajevan hills in the rain isn't everyone's idea of fun.

He turned left, as I knew he would, and the adventure continued.

It was at this point that we realised the rain we had experienced was simply something of a prelude, preparing us for the main event to come. As we continued winding our way along the narrow paths and stairways, the rain came down in a torrential downpour and we were drenched.

We eventually emerged onto the highway where we encountered more breathtaking views but the path was not as interesting. We chose to cross over the road and took some stairs back under the highway and into the hills. As we stood there somewhat bedraggled and dripping with water, an elegant woman walked towards us, casting a curious glance at us as making me feel quite self-conscious in my shorts and walking shoes.

We eventually came to a point where the path ahead was too steep and slippery to walk down and we sheltered in the shadow of a house for a short while. My heart was hammering against my ribs and my legs felt like jelly. I thought I was fitter given all the walking I do but I guess nothing can prepare you for navigating steep inclines and slippery slopes in the rain.

For the longest time, Stephen and I stood in silence, lost in the moment. I allowed myself to dwell entirely in the present, watching the rain cascade from a gutter to my side and pound the house across the road. This is what I love: exploring and discovering neighbourhoods, walking until I'm breathless and seeing what houses look like in other countries. These streets felt so familiar to me, so European, and in this moment Sarajevo became not a foreign city but a city like any other. A city I could make my home.

All of these photos were taken using my Canon 1000D. I wanted to capture the mood of that wonderful day in Sarajevo and have applied a desaturation filter in Snapseed. I love desaturation (a little bit too much judging by my Instagram gallery) and thus I am careful not to use it too often!

Have you every become purposefully, truly lost in a city? Do you also like seeing how people live and how the houses look in foreign cities?

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On Bosnia, the War and My Reason for Visiting

Sometimes, as a blogger, we get it all wrong. For some reason, I thought that you, my lovely readers, wouldn't want to know about the break up of Yugoslavia and the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 90s. I thought that Emm in London was not the place to talk about war crimes and the atrocities committed during that war, of the genocide in Srebrenica. In any event, I wouldn't have known where to start. Do you start in 1992 when Bosnia-Herzegovina entered the war or with the battle at Kosovo Polje in 1389 or the atrocities at Jasenovac during WWII?

Be Careful - dangerous ruin - Mostar

For the history of the Balkans is as complex as it is troubled and this was why I wanted to visit Bosnia-Herzegovina in the first place. Before 1991, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Kosovo were all one country known as Yugoslavia and a terrible war broke out when the state began to break up and the individual member states began to claim independence. Slobodan Milosevic and other Serbian nationalists adopted an ideal of a Greater Serbia and enacted great aggression against the other countries, especially Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, in their attempt to achieve this state. For their part, Croatian nationalists adopted a similar ideal of a Greater Croatia and pushed into Bosnia-Herzegovina in their attempt to bolster their state. Bosnia-Herzegovina was devastated.

Ruined building, Mostar

Those of you who know me well might know that I have written at length about genocide and war crimes. To put it as succinctly as possible, I was beyond horrified following the Rwandan genocide in 1994, having barely noticed the events in the context of the break up of Apartheid and the voting in of our new government in South Africa. For thirteen years those impressions bounced about in my head and I finally began writing about it in 2006. It began with a determination to Never Forget, to learn from the lessons of the past. I then wrote about Rwanda, on my passion and the need to know. About five years ago, I began to study the genocide that occurred in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Srebrenica. I wrote about my need to carry on learning and writing about this, despite the devastating effect it had on me.

And it has been devastating. In 2010, I visited Serbia for the first time. I went to visit my friend Maja who I had met online about a decade before when I was specifically looking for new friends from the former Yugoslavia. Maja is an amazing person, an open-minded individual who acknowledges the atrocities committed by Serbian forces during the war, who acknowledges the genocide. During my visit she took care to explain to me about the NATO bombing of Novi Sad, the bridges that were destroyed and the buildings damaged. She told me how Milosevic had known about the NATO plans but had not taken steps to evacuate buildings and thus minimise casualties. He wanted to polarise the people against NATO and succeeded.

Ruined house, Mostar

Maja also showed me nationalist graffiti and xenophobic slogans on people's clothing. She told me how the war is being taught to children in schools, that they are being taught that Serbia were not aggressors and were simply trying to save Catholic Serbians (known to the rest of the world as Croatians).

That trip shocked me to the core. If children weren't being taught what really happened in the 90s then my overwhelming impression was that it could happen again. I don't say this lightly - I was distraught when I returned from Serbia and it took me several weeks to put that aside and reconnect with the amazing time that I actually had there.

The shell of the Old Clock Tower, Mostar

I planned my trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina with the knowledge that this could happen to me again, that I could feel overwhelmed and that it would ruin my trip. I wanted to visit Bosnia and Herzegovina because of the war, because of its history. I felt that I couldn't share this because I, for example, know how I would feel if people told me they were visiting South Africa because of Apartheid. I'd hope they would see our amazing natural beauty, enjoy our culture and meet our people too.

I wanted to visit Mostar because of the bridge. Stari Most was destroyed by Bosnian Croat forces on 9 November 1993 - 20 years ago tomorrow. This was considered to be such a heinous act that the destruction of the bridge formed part of the war crimes charges brought by the ICTY against Bosnian Croat leaders. It formed part of a pattern of destruction against cultural, religious and historical landmarks across Bosnia; all of the mosques in Mostar were shelled too.

The following 30 second video shows the destruction of the bridge while the longer Mostar will give you much more detail about that period.

Likewise, I wanted to visit Sarajevo because of the war and because of the siege. At 1,425 days, the Siege of Sarajevo was the longest ever siege in modern warfare. It devastated Sarajevo which was once the most multicultural city in the whole of Europe and tens of thousands of Sarajevans were killed and injured during the siege. Many more lived a life filled with hardship, shortages, loss and daily terror.

It was also why I decided not to visit Srebrenica on this trip, because of the genocide. I have no doubt that I will visit Bosnia-Herzegovina again and I will go to Srebrenica to pay my respects but I did not feel ready to confront those horrors on this trip.

The Tunnel Museum, Sarajevo

This is perhaps the post that I should have started with when I began to tell you about Bosnia-Herzegovina but it's certainly not the impression that I want to leave you with. I am not lying when I say that I enjoyed every single moment that I spent in Bosnia-Herzegovina, even the ones that moved me to tears. Bosnia-Herzegovina is incredible, the people, food, language, culture and scenery all make this a country worth visiting.

All of the photos in this post were taken in Bosnia-Herzegovina in May 2013, twenty years after the war began. But for every dilapidated ruin, there was evidence of improvement, rebuilding and regeneration. This is not a country that should be defined by its war.

If you'd like to read more about my writing on war, genocide, human rights and social justice, do visit A Passion to Understand. The blog has been somewhat neglected during my studies but I hope to dedicate some time to it next year.

Have you ever been truly moved by history or events? Have you ever taken a pilgrimage to explore that history?

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