Welcome back to a new episode of the All Things Croatia podcast.
I'm your host, Stan Kozolak.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, I'm now living in Zagreb and studying the Croatian language.
Before we start, just do me a favor and follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're
listening, as well as the Facebook and Instagram page.
In this series, I'll be talking with people both in the homeland and around the globe who
have connections to Croatia.
We'll hear from startups, returning to Aspora, musicians and athletes, and the biggest Croatian
celebrities and what returned my calls.
But enough about me.
I'm Idem Odaulje and let's get started.
All right, welcome back to the podcast, everyone.
Today we have a special guest, Andrea Pizaz.
Andrea is a writer and anthropologist from the UK who moved back to Croatia for a greater
sense of purpose.
She's the author of several famous Croatian cookbooks, as well as novels and other works,
and also is the creator of the blog, Croatia Honestly, where she writes about food, history,
and culture.
In this episode, we're going to talk about why she left her old life behind, her passion
for blogging and writing, and maybe even learn a Croatian recipe or two.
Andrea, thanks for coming on the podcast.
Hi, Stanko, and thank you for inviting me and hello to everyone who is listening.
Yes, of course.
Glad to have you on.
Let's start a little bit about yourself and your background.
Obviously, you have Croatian roots.
And I know in my intro just now, I said that you moved back to Croatia, but I wasn't exactly
sure.
Were you born in Croatia, went to the UK, and then moved back?
Or how did that work?
Yeah, I think it was such a kind of circular movement for me, just like I don't even know
now.
I always feel like both an insider and an outsider wherever I go.
I think this happens to people who are born in one country, then move away, and they have
this kind of opportunity to see their own culture from the outside, from a foreigner's
perspective.
So, yes, I was born in Croatia, and one of the most difficult questions for me when people
ask me where I'm from in Croatia, I never really know what to say, because I'm not really
emotionally attached to the little town where I was born, but more so to the two regions
in Croatia where my parents come from.
So my mom comes from Međimurje, which is northwest Croatia.
This beautiful and hilly green area that's kind of framed with two rivers, the Mura
and the Drava.
And my father is Dalmatian.
So as a child, we always spent our summers in Dalmatia, in Split, and I have a lot of
contacts with my family and cousins there, and also I would visit Međimurje a lot.
And then it all comes down to food and what kind of food we ate as kids.
So this is my kind of cultural heritage that I bring along with me when I think about my
Croatian identity.
And then I moved, I went to London to the UK when I was in my 20s.
Everything was really accidental.
I studied English and Croatian as my BA degrees, and I was always dreaming of going to an English-speaking
country, and then I started working for the British Council in Zagreb, and there was an
opportunity to go and do an MA in the UK, and I applied.
But everything was like, I was never really pushy with everything.
I just kind of filled out the application form, and then the results came back, and
I was accepted, and so it kind of snowballed from there.
And all of a sudden I had all these academic successes, and I was really doing well because
the academic world is so different in the UK than in Croatia, and I really, really liked
it, and I fell in love with anthropology.
And this is a discipline that's not very common or very evolved in Croatia, so it was a new
discovery for me, and then I decided to continue with the PhD, and that's how I basically stayed
in the UK for 13 years.
And so anthropology, you didn't become interested until after you were already in the UK?
Yes, exactly.
Because in Croatia we have the discipline that's most similar to the Anglo-Saxon anthropology.
It's called ethnology, or maybe folklore studies.
And in the Croatian understanding, this is basically when you go out into the villages
and you collect all those kind of old artifacts, and then you work in a museum, and you, you
know, it's kind of like, it's a little bit retro, let's say.
And in the UK anthropology was all about traveling to kind of distant places and trying to understand
something that's unfamiliar to you.
So like kind of exposing yourself to a completely different culture, to a different language,
to a different way of life, to a different understanding of the world.
And this kind of teaches you how to accept all those differences, but it also kind of
makes you think about your own identity.
And this is how you, it kind of mirrors, it acts as a mirror to yourself, you know, you
begin to understand yourself a little bit better, your own cultural background.
And it's always like a two-way street, and it's really kind of, it develops your curiosity
a lot.
Hmm.
Do you think that being in, I mean, going from Croatia to, you know, as big a country
as the UK, did that, and then studying anthropology, did that increase your sense of identity?
Thinking like, oh, I come from this small, you know, I know you said you didn't feel a
connection to the small village, but you know, some of these smaller places in Croatia, and
now you're in a huge, you know, country.
Did that give you any sort of, like different perspective on your identity?
Oh, definitely.
Like I think that when you live for the entire life, just immersed in one environment, you,
you don't have that kind of, it's very difficult for you to know what your identity is.
If someone asks you, you know, what are you like?
It's very difficult for you to say that because you don't, you don't have that reference point.
You don't know how different or similar to what you are.
So when you start, everything boils down to comparison.
When you start comparing yourself to somebody else, you say, okay, so in London, you know,
people are more individualistic and, you know, they don't care what other people think about
them.
You know, they can wear their pajamas and walk down the street and nobody will, you know,
nobody will even look at them or even kind of gossip about them.
But if you do that in Zagreb or even in a smaller town in Croatia, you know, they'll
ask you, oh my God, what will your mom say?
What will your aunt say?
You know, aren't you cold?
You'll embarrass your whole family.
So yeah, we kind of like, then you realize, okay, people, we are more kind of collective,
collectively minded, you know, in Croatia and in the UK, people are more kind of centered
towards themselves and their own kind of individual ambition and, you know, we are more kind of
family based.
And then you start to make these comparisons, you know, we are like this, they are like that.
And it kind of builds your own sense of who you are.
And then when somebody asks you, you know, what is Croatia like or what are we Croatians
like, then it gets easier for you to say that.
Yeah, that's a good point.
And I think I can understand that because for me, it was like the opposite.
You know, I was from Born and Raised in Los Angeles, a huge city.
And I like, I had that perspective, the big side to compare it to, you know, the Croatian
community that I knew in Los Angeles, but I didn't really have the Croatian side, you
know, I went, it was two summers, and that was it for a couple of weeks at a time.
And so that's why I wanted to move to Zagreb, you know, where I'm currently right now, I'm
back in LA, but just for a few more days here, I'm going back to Zagreb.
But for me, it was important to go and, you know, be in Croatia and have that sense of,
you know, being there and being able to describe that to people.
So I understand from like a reverse sort of point as what you're saying.
And I wanted to ask you, while you were in London, did you find a Croatian community
over there?
Did you look for one?
Or was it sort of you wanted to immerse yourself in the, you know, London scene?
I wasn't really thinking about that.
But what happened was that when I started my MA, it was a college that was called Central
and Southeast European Studies.
So there was a group of people that, you know, I found like several people from Croatia.
And it was enough for me, like I made friends with like four or five people who were from
Croatia and we, you know, we spent time together.
And then I didn't have that kind of need to go and look for a wider Croatian community.
But I did find out that there is a much smaller Croatian community than in other English-speaking
countries.
So there wasn't much migration from Croatia to the UK.
I know that there is one Croatian church in London.
But that's about it.
I think there isn't more than like a thousand Croatian people living in London, something
like that.
There is a Croatian embassy in London and they kind of act as a cultural center, let's
say.
They host lots of events and roundtable discussions and, you know, so when you make yourself known
to them, you will get on their list and then you'll get invited to different events.
I wanted to ask you then.
It seems like you were enjoying your life in London and, you know, your studies and
getting an experience that you weren't able to get, you know, in Croatia.
Why did you decide to move back?
What was that motivator?
Well, again, I think it was just pure chance, really.
When I was living in London and whenever I visited Zagreb and the good thing about being
in the UK is that, you know, we got like the flights were quite cheap.
So I was able to visit three or four times a year.
And whenever I came back to Croatia and my friends asked me if I was ever going to come
back, I would always be very determined.
Never.
I'm never coming back.
And but, you know, that never say never.
And when I finished my PhD, I got a job at the college where I graduated and it was a
research post.
And the topic was not something that I chose, but, you know, it was kind of like so far removed
from my academic interest.
It was about gambling in Europe and something completely new to me because I was more focused
on literature and culture.
But it was interesting to me because one of the countries that was covered in this whole
big European study was Slovenia.
So I was thinking, OK, it's a really nice job and, you know, I would spend one year
living in Slovenia that's so close to Croatia, I will be able to visit my friends and spend
more time in Zagreb.
So I applied and I got the job.
And I was positioned in the town called Nova Gorica, which is actually on the border with
Italy.
And it would take me two hours in the car to go back to Zagreb.
So I spent almost every weekend in Zagreb.
And you know, after so many years living in London, I kind of like I lost touch with the
everyday life in Croatia.
And I remembered mostly the reasons why I left.
So I left because I thought Croatia was corrupted.
You know, I was so I was always a very, very hardworking person, always very creative, always
kind of coloring outside the lines.
And when I graduated from my BA, I wasn't able to find a job, you know, through kind
of mainstream channels because I didn't have any, you know, aunts and uncles in politics.
And then, you know, I was kind of I had like a bitter taste in my mouth, you know, remembering
those days.
And that's why I never wanted to come back because like compared to Croatia, the UK is
such a, you know, meritocratic country.
If you work hard and, you know, if you have a vision, you will definitely make it there,
you know.
But then, you know, the more time I spent in Croatia in that year when I was based in
Slovenia, I started noticing like really, really positive things and, you know, how friends
and family help each other, how there are certain things that you can't really monetize.
Like, I think I wrote about that episode on my blog, how one day we had a dinner like
10 friends, you know, sitting around the table and we had such great food and it was a real
feast and everything, you know, in the midst of this situation where there were so many
people unemployed and, you know, the economic situation is horrible and everybody is complaining
about how life is difficult.
But then I stopped myself at one point and I was, you know, looked around and I realized,
you know, my God, you know, people are living such comfortable and enjoyable lives despite
all these troubles and the only, and one of the biggest reasons why this is so is because
we are so connected and willing to help each other and this is, you know, I realized this
was so powerful and so precious, you know, this kind of reliance, you know, on your
close friends and your family, you know, something that, I don't know, it makes you feel safe,
you know, you always have that safety network, which is really, really difficult to find
in a world which is more kind of focused on individual ambition and successes.
You know, I think that's what the diaspora and a lot of the people that come back to
Croatia, you know, that's how they feel about the country as well.
I mean, there's so many great things, the community, the sense of belonging and like,
of course, the economy is not the best, the politicians are not the best, but like you
can still be happy there, you know.
Yeah.
I think that, you know, when people say that the happy person is that one who doesn't need
a lot.
So, I think in the West, most people are kind of driven to make a lot of money and to just
to accumulate things and to have a lot, but in Croatia, you don't have to have a lot to
be happy.
Like you can be, make a very, very nice life with much less than in the West.
That's the point, I think, of having a great life in Croatia.
Yeah, I agree.
And I wanted to point out, it sounds like you're kind of move away from Croatia and
you're move back to Croatia, we're both kind of by chance, you know, snowball effect.
Yes, definitely.
I thought that was funny.
You know, you had told me before that most of your work, I know you mentioned the gambling
studies, but nowadays most of your work can be described as cultural tourism and you've
actually received three different awards for your work in that field and I just want to
go over two of them.
I don't know if I can talk about the third, but.
Not yet because it's not been public.
I won't talk about that, but believe me, there's three.
And the city of Zagreb award for the exceptional contribution to promoting Zagreb's culture
and history and the Marco Polo Award for travel writing in Croatia.
And a third undisclosed, but there is one.
And I want to ask you, first of all, what exactly is cultural tourism and how are you
involved in that?
And then, you know, we can get into the awards a little and how that happened.
So I think that's kind of one of the most recent, let's say sub-genres or sub-forms
of tourism is that this realization that people really travel to experience culture
in a different place and to get to know how the local people live and what their traditions
are, you know, how they look at the world, you know, because they have maybe different
mindsets or more kind of, in a more kind of material way, the kind of the rituals they
have, the holidays they celebrate, the kind of dress they wear.
All this is something that is a much deeper understanding of the destination.
It's not only about, like, walking down the street and seeing buildings and sights and,
you know, eating in a local restaurant.
So I think that many, many destination, like mature tourist destinations realize that they
have to provide a much richer experience to people, you know, who are coming to visit.
And I don't know, I found myself in that area because of the two of my loves and one is
writing and the other one is research and more specifically ethnographic research, which
means basically capturing this kind of nitty gritty of everyday life of something that
most people take for granted.
So for example, when I talk to people who visit Croatia for the first time and I ask
them, you know, what's so great about Croatia?
And they will say, it's just the way you live.
It's like, you know, it's this kind of ubiquitous coffee drinking and, you know, the feeling
of just spending your days in a relaxed mode and always like seeing, you know, that we
are capable of enjoying the sweetness of doing nothing.
And you know, if you think, you know, if you ask yourself, what is this really?
Well, this is our culture.
This is our, you know, our way of life.
So I started writing about that on my blog and it was always an unusual travel blog as,
you know, because I was never like, you know, top 10 things to see in Croatia, top five
restaurants to eat in.
I was always writing about, you know, how people live in Croatia.
And I started getting lots of positive feedback and people would say to me, oh, I cannot really
understand now, you know, I would say, you know, give Zagreb a chance, you know, don't
stay only two days, stay two weeks and you'll, you know, it's a slow burn city.
You will really get under its skin, you know, if you stay a bit longer and, you know, they
listened to my advice and they were like over the moon, like, you know, you opened a completely
different world for me.
So then I started choosing these kind of more cultural topics and people really liked that.
And then the tourist board in Zagreb noticed all my work and they approached me and we
started cooperating on different projects and one of them was the video blog.
So it's kind of called vlog.
So I gave it the name Zagreb Shortcuts and I filmed for them for four seasons.
So it was like, I filmed over four years, like three to five minute episodes about different
interesting things culturally, historically, or just, you know, little quirks about Zagreb,
you know, what, you know, how you can deepen your experience when you're in Zagreb.
And that was really, really popular.
And then each year when the city of Zagreb gives this award, they need, somebody needs
to kind of nominate you for that.
So I got nominated and I think it's all the kind of combination of everything that I've
done until that point that kind of, that got me that award.
Yeah, that's, it sounds like a big deal.
That's really cool.
Yes.
And to me, it was a very, very proud moment because the ceremony when you receive that
award is really, really beautiful.
You're basically invited into the Zagreb City Council, I think, you know, Zagrebaczka
Skupstina, which is in the upper town and it's in the old historic hall, which was used,
it has been used as a city council for like, I think, 200 years.
And in that room, it was for the first time that even Kukuliewicz spoke Croatian during
the time when Croatia was part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and when German and Hungarian were
official languages.
So for me, as a person who is, you know, all about Croatian language and literature, it
made me so proud and it, you know, it gave me goosebumps when, when I was able to receive
that award in that place.
Yeah, a lot of history in that building.
And also a little bit about that travel award, Marco Polo award.
It's also interesting that when people think about travel writing, they always think that
you need to leave your home and go to a different country to be able to call your writing travel
writing.
But on my blog, I actually pushed those boundaries and I was always educating my readers saying
that you can actually explore your home place, your hometown, as if it was a different destination
because it happens so often that we take for granted everything that surrounds us.
And then when somebody comes to visit you, like a friend from far away, then you begin
like, researching about your own city to be able to kind of like show it to your friends
and then you begin learning about it and see it from, from a different perspective.
And then I called it like traveling without moving.
And my award for travel writing was for that particular genre.
So I was very proud of that too.
Wow, that's very interesting.
Yeah, I've never really thought about that as a sub genre before, but it makes sense,
especially for me here in LA, like when I have friends from college, you know, I went
out of state, they come to visit and say, you know, what should we do in LA?
I'm like, Oh, I mean, I don't even know.
You know, I have my own little routines and places that I go, but they said, well, let's
hike the Hollywood sign.
You know, that's popular.
Right?
I said, yeah, actually, I've never even been.
I've never even seen the Hollywood sign still to this day.
I haven't.
And like, yeah, so there's so many things, you know, right around you that like you haven't
explored before, you know, you kind of get stuck in your, in your ways and don't really
think about branching out in your own, you know, hometown.
Yeah.
That's a very interesting award.
I do want to get more into the writing.
Let's talk about your blog a little and I wanted to ask, I forgot.
I wanted to ask, um, where can people find your vlog, the video one where you got the
city of Zagreb award?
Uh, well, that can be found on my YouTube channel.
So my YouTube channel is just Andrea Pissat.
It's not branded like Croatia, honestly.
And I post all my vlog episodes there.
So there's even a playlist called Zagreb shortcuts.
So all the episodes are there.
Okay.
Great.
It makes it easy for you.
And I'll post, we'll post the, um, all the links that you would like, um, when this goes
up.
So people listening will be able to find that.
Um, you know, as you're well aware, Andrea, but for those who are listening and don't
know or didn't make the connection, your last name, Pissat's means writer.
And, um, so with that in mind, when did you start?
What your blog, Croatia, honestly?
Uh, it was in 2014.
So, uh, basically when this academic project finished, you know, the one that was about
gambling that took me to Slovenia, I was offered, um, permanent lectureship in London.
So they asked me to come back and to be a lecturer.
And, um, when you do just, when I was a research fellow, I was actually lucky to not to have
to go to my office, uh, and to my college every day.
So my life was kind of like, you know, I was spending most of my time in, in Zagreb.
And then I would, once a month, I would go back to London to have like team meetings
and conferences and all that's involved in the academic life.
But when they told me that I would have to take a lectureship, that would mean that I
would have to teach twice a week.
And it would mean that I would have to go back to London.
And I turned that down and all my friends here, they told me that I was completely insane.
But by that point, I was kind of getting tired of the academia itself because I was just,
because I always thought that I was more a fiction writer than an academic writer.
And also I was getting tired of London because it was such a huge city.
And I think it's an amazing city when you have, um, I don't know, when you have a mission.
And my mission was basically to get all my studies done there.
And, but kind of life in such a, when you think about like settling down, having a family
and, you know, having a quieter life, I don't know, a city with over 10 million people and
so sprawled out like London where it takes you like two hours on the public transport
to get it to anywhere.
It just sounded like, oh no, I can't do that anymore.
So that at that point, my life changed drastically because I basically quit my job and I moved
countries and then I had to think about what to do next.
And, and then I just said, okay, so I'm just going to start a blog.
And I didn't have a clue, you know, where, you know, where this would get me, what direction
to take.
I just knew that Zagreb was changing at that time and it was becoming a tourist destination
in its own right.
So before like Zagreb was just, you know, a place where people stopped, you know, before
going to the Croatian coast.
And I realized that there was a lack of any kind of decent travel writing about Zagreb.
So it, you know, it wasn't properly described apart from those like 10 best or 5 best kind
of more dry kind of writing.
And so I wanted to kind of infuse it with the more kind of spicy stories.
And this is how I started my blog.
It was first called Zagreb, honestly.
And I wrote only about Zagreb and then eventually I kind of branched out to cover the entire
Croatia.
So yeah, it's been going on now for what, eight years now.
Wow, that sounds a lot.
When you say it out loud.
On the topic of Zagreb and on this topic in specific, what do you think is something
that's often overlooked about Zagreb, you know, when people go either tourists or, you
know, other people in Croatia that are just, you know, stopping by the main city, what's
something that you think can be discovered more or people when they're going on vacation,
they should really stop and do.
I think it's both a blessing and a curse in the case of Zagreb because Zagreb is in my
mind, like when I compare it to other cities, it's still not a proper or a mature tourist
destination because the best things in Zagreb are not packaged as a tourist product, let's
say.
So this is great because Zagreb doesn't feel staged yet.
So like if you stay in Zagreb for more than a week, you can discover all these different
kinds of like green spaces.
And if you read a guide, you will get like suggestions like go to Maximir or go to Sleme,
you know, these are the kind of like most obvious green areas of Zagreb.
But for me, I absolutely adore Tuscany, which is kind of like a semi-wild forest right
in the middle of the city.
And you only basically have to turn north, northward, you know, from Ilica, from the
main Ilica street and you start winding those, you know, forested trails and you basically
you will feel like you're not in the city anymore.
But this kind of thing is, you know, it's not charted anywhere.
You don't have any kind of guide which, you know, which will say, okay, take the green
route or take the red route or, you know, it's not mapped out yet.
It's all down to you to discover it on your own.
Hmm, yeah, I guess like a blessing and a curse, like you said, you know, it's sort of, you
might not be able to find it, but when you do and it's kind of on your own, you know,
it feels like you're just a part of the city and atmosphere rather than you're just on
some doing some touristic walk or something, you know.
Yeah.
And then there are some like some people who write in Croatia who are like total, you know,
fans of all this kind of off the beaten path places in Zagreb.
And I read somewhere that there are so many different varieties of plants, you know, that
are kind of like medicinal herbs that that grown Zagreb.
So it's actually, you know, we really, really have like pockets of complete wilderness right
in the city center.
Hmm.
Yeah, I'll have to explore that more.
Yeah.
Not to mention that, you know, there are foxes living in those areas, you know, the, you
know, the rich, the so-called cottage neighborhood that kind of borders the, you know, the Medvedinica
mountain.
I have friends who live there and they tell me that they see foxes there all the time.
So we have wildlife there as well.
The red ones.
Yes.
Yeah.
Wow.
It's pretty cool.
I've always wanted to see, you know what I noticed when I first went to Zagreb?
I noticed, um, what are the hedgehogs?
Yes.
Right.
So I've thought in all my life in Croatia.
And also like, um, in terms of food, uh, I remember having a discussion with an American,
uh, journalist who specializes in right in travel writing.
And he also, um, talked a lot about how a destination matures, you know, um, in terms
of like receiving, um, travelers and tourists.
So in the beginning it's always like we, we want to impress and we want to serve food
which we think is good enough for people who arrive to our country.
And then, um, this means that we are basically almost ashamed of the food that we cook at
home.
And as the destination matures, we realize that it's that kind of homely cooking that's
most interesting to people who come and visit us.
And in Zagreb, there are very, very few places where you can eat the kind of food that your
moms and bakas cooked at home.
And this for me is a real shame, you know, sometimes you will see like one bistro or two
or three bistros like offering, you know, punjene paprike, like stuffed bell peppers.
Um, but they are never the ones, you know, who are most popular because I remember as
a child, the only time when we would eat out was like for a special occasion.
And then, you know, as children, we loved junk food and we always wanted to eat pizza
or chavapi.
So this, this is what kind of stayed, you know, we have lots of like pizza and chavapi
places, but not so much, you know, places where you can eat beans or sarma or stuffed
peppers or homemade strudel.
This is the stuff, so I always say like the best food in Croatia is cooked at people's
homes.
So you should be lucky enough to get invited into a Croatian home.
Yeah.
That, yeah, that's where you want to have dinner.
Maybe not at a fancy restaurant, but at someone's house.
Yeah.
I do miss the punjene paprike.
That's one of my favorite dishes.
And you know, um, my Baba used to make this and this might be, she was from the cello
in Herzegovina, but um, pura.
And I've never seen that at a restaurant.
I mean, I know it's not like a fanciest dish to make and it's just kind of, you know,
let me whip something up, simple kind of breakfasty thing.
But I was wondering, have you ever seen that in any restaurants or do you make that?
You mean, you mean Palenta?
Yeah.
Do you mean, okay.
So from my dad's side, you know, in Dalmatia, they also call it pura.
And I can't remember if I saw it in any restaurants, but people do make it often in their homes.
So this is something that you will eat with broodet, you know, with fish stew.
People eat that with different kinds of goulash as well.
So it's quite common at home, but it's kind of considered like a really, really simple
and almost kind of like a poor people's grub, you know.
So it's that kind of complex that I was telling you about.
It's like, it's too simple.
It's too kind of, you know, it's not for a restaurant.
So that's why it's not on the menu.
And you know, speaking of the dialect difference there, I was asking someone in Zagreb about
that.
When was it?
Maybe for Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving.
They don't even have that over there.
What am I saying?
I might have been used to, I forget what the occasion was, but I said, are you gonna have
pura?
And he, you know, my Croatian is really bad.
So he's like, oh yeah, you know, we'll have that.
And I realized he was talking about Turkey.
He thought I was asking about Turkey.
I was like, oh no, no.
Yeah, it seems like, yeah, we almost like speak three different languages in Croatia.
Dialects are so far apart.
Like I remember this anecdote.
My mom told me the first time when she took my father to Međumurje, he asked her basically
to, you know, be a consecutive translator because he couldn't understand anything they
were saying.
So he was a Dalmatian and he was brought to a Cahkevian house, you know, they were speaking
this dialect that sounded more Slovenian than Croatian and he was completely lost.
Wow, and it was that different, huh?
Yeah.
That's crazy.
Back on the topic of cooking.
So you came out with two Croatian cookbooks and most recently, I believe, was the desserts
one?
No, the desserts one was the first one and the classics one came out last year.
So that's the most recent one.
I see.
Okay.
And how did you come up with, first of all, the idea to actually go through, because you
know, everyone wants to compile their Croatian recipes together that they know, but to actually
go through with that and produce it and publish one.
So, you know, how did that decision come about?
I think this also had to do with me spending so many years away from home and baking was
one of the ways for me to kind of cure my nostalgia.
And I remember that I would always pack ground poppy seed and carob whenever I was in Croatia
and I was like doing all the shopping for, you know, packing for London, I would always
get those two ingredients because I could never find that in London, not the kind, you
know, the type that we use in Croatian baking.
And then when my friends asked me, you know, to bake something, it was always like a simple
or carob cake that people in Dalmatia make or something with ground poppy seed, because
it's virtually impossible to find ground poppy seed in the UK.
And so I had this kind of urge to basically, you know, comfort myself with those kind of
desserts, but also to show to my English friends, you know, the stuff that we make at home.
And then, you know, when I came back to Croatia, you know, how people like to give themselves
crazy challenges, it kind of started one evening when I said to my husband, let's do like this
really ridiculous thing and like bake 50 desserts in one month.
And then, you know, I always have these crazy ideas and he's so great because he always
supports me.
He never thinks that things are impossible.
He always says go for it.
Well, he also got to eat all the desserts, I'm sure.
Yes.
And you wouldn't believe how slim he is, you know, he can eat so much and he never puts
any weight on.
So he's a perfect, you know, tester.
Yeah.
And then, you know, I started with, you know, with my favorite things.
Oh, I forgot to mention also the kind of the anecdote of how I learned to make a strudel.
So that's like a big, big, big thing in my kind of cultural heritage, I would say, because
my grandma from Međimurje, she knew how to make like the perfect strudel, you know,
the perfect homemade strudel dough, that one that has to be like really, really thin,
you know, thin enough so you can see through it.
She didn't have any holes.
She could stretch it over like a large table.
And then she tried to teach my mom how to do it.
And, you know, my mom was there, you know, looking at my grandma and, you know, she explained,
she told her everything.
And, you know, when my mom tried to do, to replicate that, she always failed.
She failed so many times that one time she actually crumpled the entire tablecloth together
with the dough and she threw that into the bin.
She said, I've had enough, I'm a failure, I can't do it.
And you know, as my grandma was like getting, you know, older and older, I realized, you
know, but we have to keep that tradition, you know, I have to get that recipe, I have
to learn how to make a strudel.
So, you know, I spoke to my grandma and, you know, she told me, you know, the dough needs
to be this thin and this soft and, you know, she gave me all this kind of descriptive guidelines.
And then I also, you know, read a lot about, you know, the culinary techniques and why you
have to add this and why, you know, you shouldn't add, you know, too much oil and why water,
you need to hydrate the dough and all this, you know, to cut the long story short.
And I basically used my kind of scientific head to write down the perfect strudel recipe
and I became, my strudel became really famous in my neighborhood.
So all my friends and neighbors always came for my homemade strudel and this was the backbone
of the desserts cookbook.
So, you know, different kinds of strudel and then we built on that.
You know, I think the hardest part probably, I mean, that I would think maybe for you is
different, but trying to translate those recipes is that you don't get exact amounts, you know,
it's always, oh, just a handful of this, you know, do it until it feels right.
It's hard to put those into measurements, you know.
Yeah.
I remember my grandma, she had this kind of big enamel dark blue bowl.
I still remember it and she would just kind of pour, I don't know, a large amount of flour
in there, a little bit of salt and then she didn't even know how much water she put.
She would just be like, she would need that dough and she would, and I asked how much
water and she would say, you know, how much the flour can take.
The most direct answer you're going to get.
And what's the texture of the dough?
And she would say, it mustn't be too hard nor too soft.
So you were dealing with that, trying to write that into, you know, milliliters or grams.
Yeah.
Oh, that's funny.
But it was a really, really pleasurable journey for me because I started discovering like
micro-local desserts and cakes and biscuits and, you know, I traveled because I worked
with different tourist boards in Croatia.
I wrote a lot about, you know, different destinations in Croatia and then I interviewed
women there and asked, you know, about the recipes and I collected a huge list of ideas,
you know, all the kind of desserts that would represent Croatian cuisine.
And, you know, even though like, you know, they would give me their recipe, but it was
sometimes they were like really sketchy and I had to kind of try and like three or four
times to bake a dessert in my kitchen until I got the recipe just right.
I want to paint a scenario for you and I want you to tell me, I want you to tell me which
recipe that you would cook.
You know, say some tourists from, it doesn't matter, any part, anywhere else other than
Croatia.
You know, they say, they tell you, they say, Andrea, I'm going to come over to your house,
we're flying to Croatia, we can only stay a night, we're just going to go to your house
and eat a meal and leave.
You know, we want to experience a traditional, something traditional.
You know, what would you make?
What would I make?
So, I'm putting you on the spot here.
Yeah, you are.
So I would definitely make, this is something, okay, so I'm telling you a secret, this is
something that's coming out in my third cookbook.
So as a starter, I would make visca pogaca.
So it's basically a flat bread from vis, which is filled with anchovies.
And it's absolutely yummy.
So that would be a starter.
I'm a huge pescatarian, I absolutely love seafood.
So for the main course, I would make something with fish and I really, really love brudet.
So that would be like, you know, the different types of white fish like cod or red mullet.
I would put a few prawns in there, maybe an Adriatic squid or something.
So it would be a really, really big fish pot with pura.
Oh, there we go.
Just for me.
And you know, for the dessert, I would definitely make a strudel because I think creation, especially
like sour cherry strudel is absolutely amazing.
Wow, yeah, I'm getting hungry right now.
Yeah.
Might have to end this right now and go get something to eat.
Before I get too hungry, I wanted to ask one more question about food and specifically,
what to you or, you know, in general, you think is the importance of food within the
Croatian culture?
Well, we are very, very proud of our of the high quality of all the ingredients that we
have in Croatia.
And there is a very, very short journey that our ingredients have to travel from, you know,
the, you know, farm to table concept.
So lots of people grow their own vegetables.
Even if you have like a tiny backyard, people will have a garden.
This is really nice.
And sometimes like people have friends who are fishermen, like especially like with freshwater
fish, like there is a type of fish that it's almost impossible to buy in a shop.
And then you have a friend who have a friend, you know, who is a fisherman, and then that's
how you procure your fish.
He has to be connected.
Yeah, you have to be connected.
And it's the same thing with mushrooms.
Like lots of people go mushroom hunting.
You have to have a special license now.
And I actually welcome that, you know, because it's kind of regulated now how how much mushrooms
you can pick in the forest.
Oh, really?
You have to be educated to recognize edible mushrooms.
But it's also this kind of freshness, you know, the our ingredients grow very close
to where we live.
And it's also a variety of our climate, you know, we have almost three different climates
in Croatia.
There is, you know, the Mediterranean climate, the continental climate and the kind of, let's
say mountain climate in the middle.
So we have such diversity of food, you know, and this is only like talking about one aspect
and this is the ingredients.
The second one is, you know, that we always like to eat.
We like to enjoy the food is our enjoyment, you know, first, first and foremost, it's
not like that we eat to live, we live to eat.
And so we we don't mind taking our time to cook.
So so many families still cook on a daily basis.
And we also like to eat slow.
So like on the weekend, families always, you know, eat together.
Lunch can last for two or three hours.
You know, people then, you know, lunch ends, but you know, coffee begins in the afternoon.
It kind of slows you down and it, you know, is like also like what's the most important
room in the in the house, it's the kitchen, people always get gather around the kitchen
table is the liveliest, you know, part of the house.
It's the heart of the family.
And you know, food is is that thing that kind of brings us together.
Yeah, I mean, that's all in my family.
That's always been a huge aspect to have life is, you know, cooking a homemade meal and
then sitting down and eating together as a family.
And I've really appreciated that as a, you know, growing up as a kid and then even now
being able to have the whole family together and eating, talking about the day and whatnot,
you know, things like that.
And I think that's, yeah, I think that's a very important part.
Yeah.
And this is what the people who, you know, if I invite my foreign friends to my home,
you know, and when I cook, I basically share not only the recipes and not only that food
that I serve to the table, but, you know, they also get to experience, you know, our
culture of eating and they, they're completely like impressed, you know, this, this is a
dish is what at the end of the dinner, they say, I want to move to Croatia.
Yeah.
As soon as you try the food, that's all you need to want to go over there.
Yeah.
Andre, I wanted to ask you as we're getting towards the end here, I'm sure is your, your
first two cookbooks, are they available worldwide for shipping?
Yes.
We basically, we have our own warehouse in Croatia.
So it's also something that I'm proud of.
So it's made in Croatia.
It's something that, you know, we are a family-based business and, you know, we, we do everything
ourselves.
We have a few people who we work with, like designers and printers and, but basically
we package and ship books ourselves and we work with the DHL now that, you know, they
ship express worldwide and it's really, really amazing how quickly the, you know, the books
arrive to their destination.
So like to the States, you know, it's like three to five business days and the book is
there and that's really amazing.
So there are no limits.
So we basically ship worldwide.
And it's very much, as you said, a local production.
Yes.
Yeah.
And I wanted to ask, I asked someone this the other day on the podcast, a similar question,
but have you, has there been, have you had orders from any countries that you were surprised?
Like, oh, wow, you know, there's a Croatian or someone interested in Croatian food in
this country.
So let me answer with another question.
Are you surprised when you realize where in the world you can find creations living?
At this point, though, since I've been asking this question, though, wherever, wherever
there are creations living, we had orders from those places.
So it's like, you know, every single English speaking country, like from Canada, the States,
New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, also some orders to Latin America, like Patagonia,
you know.
I was, you know, I was really, really amazed when, when the books traveled to Tasmania,
because that's the kind of, that sounds to me like very exotic because it's so far away.
But let me tell you something else.
Right now, creation desserts is on Antarctica.
No way.
Really?
How does that happen?
Yes.
Well, I will send you photos.
I have a photo of the cookbook with penguins in the background.
Oh yeah, please send that.
So it happened because like I posted on Facebook, I said, my cookbook has traveled widely than
me.
I wish I was my cookbook and it's on every continent in the world apart from Antarctica.
And then a woman of Croatian roots who is based in Chile, she replied to me and she said,
oh, I work, I organize scientist expeditions to Antarctica, I can make it happen.
I will send you a book there.
Wow.
That's so cool.
Yes.
So the book is on Antarctica via a Croatian connection.
So you can get it to any continent if you have to.
Yes, exactly.
Wow, that's really cool.
Well, Andrea, you know, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the podcast
today and talk to us about your contributions to promoting Zagreb and Croatian culture
and your blog, Croatia Honestly, check that out and your video vlogs as well on YouTube.
And of course your cookbooks and I'm looking forward to the third one coming out.
Do you have a date?
Well, I hope it will be by the end of this year, but still not 100% sure.
But we'll get the first two and by the time you've gone through those, the third one will
be out.
Yes.
All right, but yeah, thank you again so much, Andrea.
You know, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on here.
Well, thank you for inviting me again and I'm sending you greetings from Croatia to wherever
you are in the world, everyone, and congratulations on starting the podcast.
That's it for today's episode of the All Things Croatia podcast.
Thanks for tuning in and I hope you all enjoyed it.
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Thanks again and vide mosten.