farm and home produce

Farm and home selling of produce is very common in Serbia. The roadside stands in some area are unbelievably rich with the range of frints and vegetables. In other places it seems to be all cabbage, or all squash, or all paprikas.

On the road between Ruma and Novi Sad, over the slopes of Fuska Gora, is some of the best produce. On the road south to Nis I've noticed that there will often be people, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, sitting in a small straw lean-to with bags of paprika and cabbage beside them.

In town one will find a yard gate or house window hung with a bag of fresh paprika (bell peppers, hot peppers, hungarian peppers), potatoes, jabuka (apples), gerkins or cukes, or oher produce sometimes with a written sign, sometimes not: the produce is the sign.

Sometimes the display will simply be a jar or med / mez (honey) with a number that is the price in dinars, or there's a bottle of homemade rakija (brandy), usually plum, usually very strong at around 60-65% v/v. The commercial rakija are almost all the standard 40% strength (and sometime really taste watery).

Just a few houses further west on Topartska a neighbour offers a selection of rakija / palinka with a bilingual Serbian / Hungarian sign:

kajsija = apricot
kruska = pear
dunja = quince
sljiva = plum
vocna = fruit
jabuka = apple

Other people make rakija from grapes or peaches.

T: Moose by Alan Silyboy
loc: Topartska 23A
temp: 4 c
sound: Hot Toddy The Salty Sessions, vol. 1