Eat To Live

Having been here in Macedonia for 29 months I have had the opportunity to sample most if not all of the traditional food dishes. All of them are made with the home grown ingredients that are seasonally based and are very fresh and quite delicious. So right now, root vegetables-potatoes, carrots, onions, leeks, garlic, beets- are easily found at the market here in Probistip. Sometimes you can find lettuce and broccoli because some of the growers have installed plastic covered hot houses. Imported oranges, mandarins, kiwis, grapefruit, bananas and local apples are plentiful. For some reason, dried cranberries are available. Hats off to the marketing people from the cranberry growers of America who have overcome the Macedonian tradition of reluctance to try something new or different.

The five meat stores make it easy to procure pork, chicken and sometimes, beef. It’s still very difficult to find lamb in this part of the country. The beef I have bought, however is very tough, so I have been unsuccessful in making a nice roast beef or beef Wellington. The ground beef makes excellent low-fat hamburgers and Shepherd’s pie. You can, of course, find a better variety of meat in the bigger cities. There are quite a few “meats” that are available that I have not developed a taste for or in some cases have not identified, but are quite popular here. Tongue, hearts, intestines, brain, kidneys and all sorts of dried smoked meats and sausages fill the meat displays.

As good as the traditional food is, there is a real shortage of variety in the towns and villages. Here people eat to live, not live to eat. Each of the dozen-or-so restaurants have the same menu and choices. No Italian, Chinese, Turkish, or Mexican. No chain restaurants. But for the equivalent of $5, I can get an enormous salad, fresh bread, 2 beers or 2 glasses of wine, an entrée with fries and a pancake dessert (a crepe). I can get a large roll filled with a “hamburger” (a pork-beef mixture) and fries and covered in ketchup and mayo for 65 cents. A beer would make it $1.05.

Every Wednesday in Probistip is market day, a day to meet up with neighbors and friends from the villages and a day to procure items which aren’t readily available in the stores in The Probe. It’s a very big social event. I am always amazed at the pint-sized babas in their traditional dress who have come out for the occasion to shop. not even 4 ½ fee tall pushing a wheelbarrow or pulling a shopping cart full of a week’s necessities, whether it be fresh produce, paper products or some new clothes.

A frustrating task is trying to get an older Macedonian to try a new food. Some won’t even try, some will try reluctantly and some look forward to the new experience. Jell-O because it wiggles too much and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because “we don’t eat salty and sweet together” (Payday), received a thumbs down. Some children at school liked Toll House cookies, others didn’t. Fruit pies when I make them, which are unknown in these parts, generally receive a thumbs-up.

I rarely eat out simply because there is no variety in the restaurants. I can always find something of interest to make at home with the ingredients I have on hand. Frequently I must make substitutions for ingredients but the final dish always turns out edible. The Peace Corps Volunteers in Macedonia put together a cookbook filled with recipes that can be made using ingredients that can be found locally.

Lately I’ve been making my own bread, much to the dismay of the students at school and my male and female friends. Men don’t bake. That’s impeding on the roll of the women folk (clever play on words). Freshly baked buttered bread, 15 minutes hot out of the oven ranks in the Top Ten Pleasures of life on earth. Why couldn’t God have made vegetables taste like freshly baked bread? I would surely look forward to eating my brussel sprouts and green beans.

Most Macedonians in the rural areas have never left Macedonia and are unaware of the overwhelming variety of foods in the world. They are content eating the foods that their families have been preparing for hundreds of years. Variety doesn’t really matter – unless you’re a PCV who has lived in-country for the last 29 months.