When I was four years old, I got the mumps. Father was a physician, but the remedy did not come from a pharmacy. Instead of reluctantly ingesting grape-flavored syrup or being force-fed pink gel antibiotics, my neck, jaws, and cheeks were enveloped in smoked, thickly sliced ribbons of bacon, and wrapped with a bandana tied tightly on top of my head. I slept several nights stewing in smoke and grease, while my sister, sixteen months younger, shared my bed (not on her own volition). Mother and Father hoped I’d give her the mumps and get the whole thing over with for our household. My fever almost melted the bacon, but my misery did not move my parents to spare me that porcine torture. In a few days, the swelling was gone, my temperature subsided, and I was bacon-free, even though I smelled like a ham hock for days.*
Mother’s hearty Potato and Smoked Meat Soup brought back the memories of warm bacon layering my cheeks, and I suffered horrible olfactory flashbacks while eating even the smallest serving. My sister did not suffer any consequences from that ordeal. For no reason whatsoever she detested green beans. The randomness of her choice used to bother me because my dislike was obviously and unequivocally cemented in logic. Ultimately it did not matter because to Mother it was all the same. We had to eat whatever she prepared and the only negotiation concerned portion size. I suffered through the harsh and unusually cruel punishment of forcefully swallowing the odious soup with the stoicism of a martyr, while considering my sister’s insistence on hating green beans a pretentious whim, shallow and fickle, borne out of stubbornness. After all, her favorite dish was spring peas!
We grew up. Our palates continued to develop as we moved away from Mother’s hearth, well-prepared to embrace the world of culinary adventures. I moved to America. My sister moved to Germany. New experiences challenged us every day and molded us into what we are today. Somewhere in the process I stopped hating the smell of cooked smoked pork. Instead of dragging me back in time to suffer the horror of being wrapped in bacon, that smell evolved into a beacon guiding me home. My biggest anguish now is the inability to procure Serbian grade smoked pork products in California. One day soon…
My sister and I plan our summer visits to Serbia to spend as much time together as we can. We sit on the balcony looking down on hundreds of red roofs, sipping a glass of wine, reliving our teenage and adolescent years, crying and laughing. We talk until late at night in the room that used to be ours, digging out every embarrassing detail we tried to forget for years, confessing minor sins in hope of forgiveness, and hushing each other when the giggles get out of control for fear the husbands and the kids might wake up.
Once in a while I can coax my sister to accompany me to the market. I have to promise a leisurely pace and a visit to one of our favorite cafés. She reluctantly agrees, spends some time primping while I write the list, prepare the bags, and tap my foot impatiently. We walk under the linden trees that line our street and breathe in the familiar smell of our town in summer. The old concrete is gone and new pinkish tiles line the sidewalks, but our feet still find the invisible paths they engraved years before. The student cafeteria is a bank now. The old pastry and ice cream shops are not there any more, replaced by…well, newer pastry and ice cream shops. The stores have changed their names to things more colorful and international. But this is still our town, moreso than if we lived here year round.
Walking past the men offering currency exchange (no, not that kind of exchange) in a “psst, hey buddy” whisper**, and past the tavern that serves the best braised tripe (so I’ve heard) in town, we arrive at the market. Heading towards the covered and air-conditioned part, we wade through Gypsies offering packs of socks or new brooms. Entering the cool building that houses dairy and meat vendors, we buy chicken leg quarters from Father’s friend who taught me how to cut up the chicken properly. Next we sample cheeses, trying in vain to find the elusive one we enjoyed as children. We buy brown eggs, collected that morning, and nestle them carefully in one of the egg cartons I brought from the U.S. We go outside and loop around the stalls, touching, smelling, tasting. We joke with the farmers and humor unsolicited life advice from old ladies dressed in brown with babushkas on their heads. We pack our canvas bags full of summer produce and carry them between us. The bags rest on the floor-tile of the restaurant “Proleće”, while we sip a Schwepps Bitter Lemon or an icecafe, and watch people go by. There are some new kids running around, high on life and drunk on the promises of the future. And we see each other, and our friends as we were when we owned this town way back “in the day”, feeling at the top of the world, invincible and eternal.
Refreshed, but prompted by the sun to pick up the pace, we arrive home and empty the bags on the kitchen table. Red orbs of tomatoes, long triangles of pale yellow peppers, bright orange carrots, dark-skinned cucumbers, perfect ovals of new potatoes, and yellow, purple-speckled romano beans.
My sister finally overcame her childhood confusions and embraced the beans in all their summer splendor. I cannot be with her this summer, while she strolls along the river bank, or sits at the table flanking the house, marveling at the size of the magnolia tree our grandfather planted many years ago. I will not be there to wake her up with a cup of strong Turkish coffee, or to keep her awake at night with infinite stories of our youth. The least I can do is make the beans that define the summer for me. I picked them up at Irvine Farmers Market.
MOTHER’S ROMANO BEANS (MAMINA BORANIJA)
I usually prepare it with chicken in hopes of luring the College Kritter to eat it, but it is equally delicious as a vegetarian version.
Ingredients:
- 1 Tbsp sunflower oil
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 2 medium carrots, sliced
- 1 celery stalk, diced
- 500gr (1 lb) romano beans, green or yellow
- 2-3 chicken leg quarters, depending on size (optional)
- 1 ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp freshly ground pepper
- 1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes
Directions:
Add the oil to a 5 quart pot or a Dutch oven and heat on medium temperature. Sautee onions, garlic, carrots and celery until transluscent, 6-7 minutes. Add the beans and the chicken (if used), and enough water to cover the meat and the vegetables. Season with salt and pepper. Turn tne temperature to high, until it boils, then turn it down to medium low. Simmer for 30 minutes and add the tomatoes. Cook for another 30 minutes until chicken is cooked and the beans are tender. Taste and adjust the seasononings. Sprinkle with fresh minced parsley. Serve with freshly baked bread. Serves 4.
*My sister did get the mumps just like the adults planned. And couple of years later she got sick with them again. This time, our younger brother was the unwilling victim of torture by bacon.
**This is a relic from the 90s, when the country was under embargo and economic sanctions. Hyperinflation could render a paycheck worthless in mere hours, so people would convert their dinars into dollars or marks to preserve the spending power of their earnings. But currency exchange was an illegal grey market that took place on street corners with men who looked for all the world like they were trying to move fake Rolex watches. Now that currency exchange is available in any bank, those guys are still there, still whispering as if Milosevic were still in power.
I am submitting this for “Two For Tuesdays” event.
17 Responses to “I’d Rather Be… With My Sister”
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what a wonderful post!! thanks for sharing your life with us!
that soup looks delicious, with or with out chicken!
Thanks, Dennis, for stopping by and reading! Appreciate the feedback!
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It really is so nice to learn where are friends have come from and the distance they have traveled to reach the place they now are in. Your story is lovely and your mother’s soup sounds delicious. I hope you are having a wonderful day. Blessings…Mary
Thank you, Mary, for stopping by. My sister is my best friend.
All those wonderful ways to heal the child. But on my TOP-10 list of best “medicine” at first place is “pulling” body temperature with “rakija”. And if you mix Lana’s bacon “drug” and rakija you will be in such of condition that you will jump from the bad and start screaming “I AM HEALTHY, I AM NOT ILL ANYMORE!!!” Great work! Go Lana, GO!
He, he, thanks!
This looks like a great recipe, thank you for sharing it with Two for Tuesday. But I’ve gotta be honest, it’s your beautiful story that will stay with me. I enjoyed this post very much!
What a wonderful, touching post! Although, I had to chuckle, because my dad had a similar method of curing ear aches/ ear infections when I was little. He’d wrap the strips of raw, fatty bacon with a bit of cotton and put them in my ears, making me lie down and let the fat drip into the ear…ugh. And of course, I’ve tried the same with my children now, LOL! Your soupsounds pretty great, actually! Thanks so much for sharing it with us at Two for Tuesdays, but please remember to go in and add a link to Two for Tuesdays so everybody can find it and share in the love! =)
Thank you for stopping by and commenting! As a new blogger, I need feedback. And I chuckled when I read about fatback in your ear – my mother would “boil” garlic in a little bit of olive oil, for 5-10 minutes, cool it down to room temp. and fill the dropper with garlic-oil. That was our cure for ear infections. And I did try it on my daughter (the only one who suffered from them), and it worked! As for links, I have a steep learning curve with blogging technology. I’ll post a link as soon as I figure out how!
Thank you! My family is far away and my memories are all I have (yes, they visit, and I visit, but it is not the same). For me, food, family and friends is the essence of life. Btw. love the name of your blog! I render lard, too!
I love your post. Such funny and wonderful memories. It’s interesting how soup, such a comfort food, often reminds us of our child hood home. Thanks for sharing..the recipe and the story.
Hi Lana and welcome to the two for tuesday recipe blog hop! We have a lot in common! My dad was also a physician, I also had mumps and this treatment! I simply adored this post and your sharing the heart of your heart with us, your sisterly love!
I am now following you on twitter, but tried to get your RSS feed. The feed button links not to your url but to a dating discussion board, so you may want to fix that. When you go I will grab your true feed. Again, thank you for linking up to the two for tuesday recipe blog hop and I hope to see you again next week! 
alex@amoderatelife
I chuckled when I read that you got treated the same way for mumps! Our parents were on to something, I guess. Thanks for the tip about the RSS – I had husband look into it. It is working properly now. See you next Tuesday!
Thanks, Bonnie, for visiting my blog! How can you fit all of those creative things that you do in a day? I do not quilt and I do not knit, although I tried, a lot of times. I’m just too impatient, I guess.
Hi Lana. I wanted to thank you again for submitting your recipe to the blog hop at Two for Tuesday. I was so utterly charmed by your story that I’ve featured it as one of my selections for “Best of the Blog Hop.”
Thanks! Let’s compare recipes for rendering lard one day, when the temps start climbing down the thermometer!