Recipe books

I may have mentioned that I have a Yugoslavian cookery book. Yugoslavia no longer exists, it didn’t even last a hundred years as a country because it was founded in 1918 combing different people, Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, held together administratively. The desire for independence from each other was always strong, and after the death of Tito in 1980 that desire became even stronger, resulting in war and disruption, and sadly the deaths of many, many, maybe untold numbers of people. There are now seven independent countries in the region. I guess my Yugoslav cookery book is now quite unusual, published in the 1980’s, it must have come out as Yugoslavia was falling to pieces.

As I look through it there are many appealing recipes, but sometimes I have no idea what the dishes might be unless I read the ingredients! Yes, there are particular names for food which cannot be translated, but it would be helpful to have a subtitle which explains what the end-product might be! Have a look at the following recipe… the title says it all!

Trout as in Montenegro

• 2 lb trout
• 4 tbsp sour cream
• 4 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
• 4 cloves of garlic, grated/minced/crushed (seems rather a lot for one fish so use less to taste)
• flour for coating, salt for seasoning, oil/butter for frying

1. season fish and coat with flour, fry in plenty of oil/butter until the skin is nice and crisp and the fish is cooked through
2. mix the cream, parsley and garlic
3. serve the trout with the cream poured over it

Potatoes simply boiled go well with this!