Intro

    Just 4 or 5 years ago, my thoughts about food were no different then thoughts of most of the people from my country and this part of Europe. Meal without meat is no meal. If by any chance you would even think about preparing some dish without meat and serving it to me, you would need to use massive quantities of cheese, eggs, sour cream etc if you wanted me to like it. Although I always like salads, especially fresh salads made with homegrown Serbian veggies (some people say tomato here, tastes like tomato), I never considered them as a full meal, when they are not accompanied with meat, or at least with some cheese. Tomatoes, cucumbers and onions, without some white cheese on top, NO WAY PEDRO!

    I always liked Balkan cuisine though. It was always good by itself. In Serbia, and I guess in some other Balkan countries you have people that never even tried any foreign dishes. Number of Balkan people on question: What food do you like the most? would answer: Homemade food (domaću kuhinju). So why Balkan people love their food so much? Especially now when you have so many opportunities to try stuff from far away lands, dishes made out of veggies that don't even grow on your continent, prepared by foreign chefs in restaurants decorated to reflect all beauties of their foreign and exotic lands, why do they stick to their homemade food? Because they love their momma? Well yeah, that's maybe one part of the answer. But the other part lies the fact that Balkan peninsula is a great historical mixture of languages, cultures, music and of course cuisines.

    On Balkan peninsula you can taste refreshing Mediterranean salads, kebabs brought on swords of people from Central Asia, healthy sauerkraut hangover curing dishes from German parts of Europe, beans that held Serbian army man warm for last few centuries and there are stuffed peppers too. And all that stuff we make at our homes, from ingredients we buy at our local peasant markets, no deli-stores, no fancy restaurants, no small expensive packs of fruits and veggies with weird names.

    People learn new stuff every day, as I've always been a Curious George,  like to ask questions, explore history of stuff etc. after long time of examining my attitudes towards meat consumption i completely changed my way of thinking, and which is the most important eating. First days of my vegetarian and later vegan and macrobiotic diet were very hard. I missed all those nice homemade dishes i used to eat. New vegetarian exotic and expensive stuff couldn't replace Balkan dishes in my book. Also the costs were big, all money that i used to spend on meat, milk and eggs, i start spending on all kinds of soy products, plus all kinds of exotic fruits and veggies with weird tastes to replace all those dishes i missed so much. After some time of hunger, overspending and dreaming of sarma, podvarak, and shopska salata, i decided to cut the bullshit and start eating all that Balkan home made food i liked so much, but without meat, eggs, dairy products and milk. It was one of the best decisions of my life. :)