I missed having lamb for the past three Easters, so two weeks ago I questioned one of my friends as to why it was so difficult to find lamb at the meat markets in Probistip. After all, there’s sheep all over place. “Well in Probistip, we don’t eat lamb” was the answer. I didn’t pursue the answer to the question “Why?”. I’ve learned there probably wouldn’t be a logical answer that would satisfy me as a person from outside the Balkans. In the western part of Macedonia there there is a large Albanian (Muslim) population and pork is not eaten and hence, lamb and beef are everywhere. Probistip is in the northeastern part of the country (mostly Orthodox Christian) and pork and chicken are the meats of choice, the only choice, at least here in Probistip.
So answer in answer to my question of “how could we get some lamb”, my friend Darko replied, “we could go to one of the villages and buy a lamb.” I had been thinking, like maybe a leg or some chops, but a whole lamb? Pressured by my craving for lamb, as well as my curiosity as to how we were going to pull this off, I said “OK, let’s do it?”
Darko put a plan together and its execution began on a rainy Sunday evening. He and his father picked me up in their family Yugo and we drove about 12 kilometers to one of the villages where a person could buy a lamb. Crammed in the back of the Yugo for the journey, I wondered how I was going to share such limited space with a lamb who probably wasn’t going to be too cooperative in such a new environment as the backseat of a Yugo with someone who wasn’t even from his village or for that matter, his country.
When we arrived in Stubol, we had to wait a little while for the return of the shepherd from the pastures with the flock. After penning up the sheep, the owner of the flock (the shepherds are hired hands) went into the pen and picked out our future dinner, secured his legs and weighed him on a scale that had probably not been calibrated to any standard weight for a half a century or more. The rain soaked, dirt covered lamb (the lamb’s wool looked nothing like the pure white lamb’s wool that appears in children’s books) weighed in at 19 kilograms (42 lbs.).
My newly purchased (@ $60) lamb was then put into the trunk of the Yugo (I was relieved I didn’t have to share the back seat) and we proceeded to the village of Old Probistip, where awaiting us would be the local butcher to perform Step 2 of Darko’s plan. Darko and I didn’t want to watch the actual throat slitting, so we waited until the task was completed and then entered the garage to watch Ruman do his thing. Every internal organ (intestines, stomach, liver, kidneys, head) was excised and cleaned to be used in some local dish. There was no waste. The gutted lamb was left whole and not cut up into the usual parts that I am familiar with – chops and legs.
Step 3 involved taking my lamb (now weighing 9 kilograms or 19 lbs), to Darko’s sister’s home where freezer space was made available. Step 4 took place the following Friday when the frozen lamb was removed from the freezer in preparation for Step 5A, baking the lamb in the oven at the local bread factory where Kire was a supervisor, on Saturday morning. We figured there would be enough lamb for about 8 people, so the guest list for our picnic included some of the regulars at our weekly English conversation group. David, John (a visiting friend of David’s who had been in the Peace Corps in 1964), Goran, Clavche, Kire, Anita, Darko and me made it onto the guest list.
Step 5B was the actual eating of the lamb. Darko and Goran selected a site that was set up for picnics up in the mountain alongside the Zletevo River. We purchased all the makings of a salad and some mushrooms while I brought rakija from Negotino, cigars, homemade cinnamon buns and marshmallows to roast (marshmallows are unknown in Probistip and I thought it would be fun to introduce toasting marshmallows to my friends. Lee had brought them for me on her recent trip.) Others brought the wine, beer, bread, water, soda utensils and plates. We also brought the horseshoes.
We piled into a combi (a large van) that we had hired (500 denari round trip for $6) in front of the bakery at noon and headed up the mountain. The location was unbelievable and very isolated. The owner of the property charges 50 denari ($1) for each person using the fully equipped campsite.
The lamb turned out to be the best I ever ate and I had enough to keep me happy for a long time. We had an enjoyable afternoon. I learned the proper way to prepare lamb from scratch while my friends learned how to toast marshmallows, appreciate an after-dinner cigar, and recreate with a game of horseshoes.
Check out the annotated photos for a much better perspective on the joys of living here in Macedonia.
No comments:
Post a Comment