Food History

The final post from Alma.

The people I come from, the Serbs, have something unique. Our faith celebrates a day called “Slava”, or literally “Celebration”, which is traditionally celebrated by every family on a different day – on the day that their ancestors accepted Christianity, so the story goes, and that day is celebrated and passed down over the generations, and the family takes the saint whose day it is as their own personal family saint – this guy is ours.

His name is Avramije, which translates as “Abraham”, and as a child I was terminally confused as to who had sainted the patriarch of the Jews into the Christian canon of saints and how we ended up with him as our patron saint – turns out he was quite a different “Abraham”, as it happens, and his day, November 11, is when my family celebrates our Slava.

Now a Slava is a great occasion. A tall candle is lit, and allowed to burn until it dies a natural death – it is bad luck to snuff it out by human hand. The candle flickers in the family home all day, giving a holy churchy atmosphere; all day friends and neighbours drop in with a “Sretna Slava!” (Happy Slava). There is a family feast – in fact, one time I was taken to a London Slava of a family I didn’t personally know but I went as a guest of a friend of mine, who knew them well. Being of the same cultural background, I knew what was going on – my neighbour at dinner, a hapless English innocent, did not. So, the first course arrived, the appetisers, and he helped himself to those. Then the soup came. Then, after that, they started bringing out the main course – roast goose, roast pig, roast beef, a slew of rich vegetable dishes. You could see the Englishman starting to turn green but he manfully ate up. The main course was followed by a selection of small individual cupcakes and tea cakes and biscuits, and he took one or two on his plate – and he was doing fine until one of the cooks popped her head out of the kitchen and said cheerfully, “Save room for the cakes!” (meaning those 16-egg monsters, and there were several coming…) Our Englishman simply slid under the table, groaning.

You have to grow up with this stuff to know how to pace yourself.

But one of the traditions of Slava is something called “Koljivo”, which is a dish made out of wheat… and it’s a dish of remembrance. Guests are greeted with it at the door, a small bowl of wheat and a teaspoon, and a taste of it is a reminder of those who were no longer with us, absent from the family table. Koljivo is something that is also prepared for memorial services in the church. It is the food of memory, and remembrance, and love, and loss, and also a sense that we are all always and forever part of a family, whether we still walk the vales of tears or watch over those who do from one of God’s own fluffy clouds. A taste of the wheat means that we are all, again, somehow, one – united under the name of a long-vanished saint whose day we have taken, as a family, to celebrate together.

I have a superstitious awe of this dish, and I do only make it once a year, in November. But I love it dearly, and if I weren’t constrained by its meaning and its meaningfulness I’d make it a lot more often…

So – Koljivo, or the Wheat of Remembrance –

Ingredients:
Equal amounts (by weight) of wheat, sugar, ground walnuts, ground cloves. Raisins, if your taste runs to it.

Cook the wheat in several changes of water, until it is quite soft, and then puree into a paste (we do it manually, using a meat grinder – pour in the cooked wheat at the top and collecting the “sausages” of mashed wheat in a bowl at the other end). Mix well with the sugar and the nuts (and the raisins, if you’re using them). Mix in ground cloves to taste (I like it quite strong. If you aren’t used to the taste, use a lighter hand). Place into a serving bowl, and chill until ready to serve.

There you are. May your memories stay bright. For a moment, if you make this dish, you may share my heritage, my traditions, my celebrations… my “slava”.

Alma Alexander is a novelist writing for both adult audiences (”The Secrets of Jin Shei”, “Embers of Heaven”) and YA readers (the Worldweavers trilogy, “Gift of the Unmage”, “Spellspam”, Cybermage”). Her work has been published in fourteen languages worldwide. She lives in the Pacific Northwest in the USA, with her husband and two cats. Learn more about her at www.AlmaAlexander.com, and more about the Worldweavers books at their own site, - or just come and visit at her blog.