This is a common and tasty mushroom, curious for the fact that it is eaten on the islands. Islanders have always been oriented towards the sea and meagre soil, putting their faith in their boats and their hoes. Mushrooms, however, seem to have escaped their attention, rujnica, or agaric, being an exception. (Indeed, on the island of Kor?ula, rujnica is, in fact, called a “mushroom”, while members of that family which are not eaten are not regarded as mushrooms!). They are eaten on the islands of Lastovo, Kor?ula and Mljet. Rujnica is a firm-fleshed mushroom that is, therefore, suitable for a longer period of cooking. The traditional dish on Kor?ula is mushrooms in sauce made from onion, tomato concentrate, potato, red wine, sugar and olive oil, cloves, salt and pepper -there you go with a recipe for this delicious sauce. Fish was and still is prepared in a similar way.

Should you chance to meet a peasant on the edge of a forest and should you ask him are there any mushrooms, you will make a mistake. Not because the man is secretive about his find, but because for him the word “mushroom” carries a different meaning. Only an edible mushroom he is familiar with is a real mushroom, and this is limited to about ten varieties that form a part of traditional popular cuisine. Those mushrooms that rural folk do not know much about, or which are not edible, are simply not regarded as mushrooms.

When one mentions mushrooms in Croatia, most people will automatically think of “Penny Bun.” The cep is a mushroom that comes to everybody’s mind because of its shape, divine fragrance, majestic cap and charming plumpness.
It has always been a most cherished mushroom in Croatia, one that anybody can recognize despite the fact that there are some 30 similar varieties in the same family, some of which are listed as protected plants. Ancient tradition has it that should you ever chance upon a lone cep, you should ask it quietly, “Where is your brother?”, since they invariably grow in pairs.
There are several methods used in their preparation. In Zagorje they are best served with eggs: a spot of pork fat, some sliced onion, sliced cep added and gently cooked. Eggs are then blended into it and the mixture fried to a soft texture. Another highly popular, delicious recipe is Penny Bun soup, always with the addition of smetana and vinegar.
Mushrooms of all types are often grilled over live coals, but it is the Penny Bun which is by far the best when cooked in this way: simply dipped into melted butter and placed on a grill. When done, they should be sprinkled with salt and a few drops of a fine alcoholic beverage and served with rye bread and a slice or two of prosciutto or ham gently fried over the fire.
It may be widespread, and indeed common, but the Penny Bun still remains one of the best and most highly regarded of mushrooms. In the region of Gorski kotar there is a place called Ravna Gora, where a “Day of mushrooms” is organized on annual basis: mushroom hunters spend a day together looking for Penny Buns which, needless to say, are consumed with great relish at the end of the day.

Some twenty years ago Ivan Focht, philosopher, aesthetic of music, biologist and a passionate mushroom expert, wrote to his friend: “music and mushrooms came to us from the heaven.” Back then this was a romantic confession of a scientist at the end of the road; today, it sounds more like a touristic slogan.
In the forests of Gorski kotar and Slavonia, alongside rivers, in the meadows of Lika, on islands, in Istria, in short, everywhere, there exists the mysterious world of mushrooms which is an inexhaustible source of discussion and pleasures to both mushroom experts and gastronomes.
At a time when mushrooms in Europe are being threatened by the destruction of their habitat, and when some species have long disappeared, Croatia seems more like a botanical garden, a protected oasis which everybody can enjoy. Everybody, from tourists and mushroom experts to scientists and ecologists. And long my this remain so.

Picking, gathering or catching only what nature herself provides us, without any effort by the growers and breeders, would be enough to experience endless culinary delights. Frequently, such dishes are underappreciated since the ingredients grow in abundance across meadows, clearings and woods, and as a consequence do not fetch particularly good prices.
An ideal example of this kind is mišanca, that is, a “mixture” of wild or semi-wild plants gathered in spring or early summer, particularly in the Mediterranean regions of Croatia. Formerly, it consisted of some 20 or more plants, while today it is based on various types of wild and semi-wild onion, certain grasses, edible flowers, and herbs.
The method of preparing a mišanca is from a combination of popular culinary concepts and skills. At the start of the season, in early spring, mišanca can be eaten fresh, as a salad, dressed with wine vinegar and olive oil. It is quite delicious with the addition of salt-pickled anchovies, olives, capers and hard boiled eggs. Mišanca can also be briefly cooked in boiling water and again served with a number of additions, but which now extend to boiled potatoes, chick-peas, broad beans, beans, lentils. Fish laid on a bed of mišanca and baked in the oven in an earthenware dish, ranked at the peak of gastronomy, is becoming ever more inviting to the young stars of the culinary arts in Croatia.
The richness of genuine Mediterranean aromas offered by mišanca, the power of essential oils contained in wild-grown plants, opens up new avenues into delightful culinary interpretations: mišanca in fritajas, or rather omelettes and pancakes, made into a sauce and served over home-made pasta, cooked together with lamb or kid over a gentle heat, cooked with dried mutton or proscuitto bone and potatoes, combined with olives and mixed into flat cakes…
This wonderful mixture should be sought out, albeit under its different names, in all the regions of the Croatian Adriatic, but also on the markets of Zagreb. The wider the variety of plants included, the more appreciated mišanca is, and the touch for deciding on the correct ratio of individual plants, as per the recipe, is a sign of a chef extraordinaire.

The pepper biscuit is an old recipe that could be found from the eastern borders of Slavonian cluster to the southern border of the Split region. Its main ingredients are flour, eggs and pepper, and its variations several. And since they symbolize the old, popular cuisine, the national airline company serves them on its flights as small, sweet refreshment. Today, it is produced, packaged and distributed by a pastry shop on the island of Hvar, and from one in Zagreb – which has resulted in the biscuit becoming a Zagreb souvenir.

Large pans with wide rims, sometimes as much as 2 meters wide, are placed on specially designed stoves – usually cleverly adapted metal barrels. In Zagore, Prigorje, Zagreb, but above all in Samobor, these kitchen contraptions, which go by the name of kotlovina, as does the dish prepared in them, are the symbol of merrymaking, good times and good food.
Every gathering of people in the open is an excellent opportunity for a kotlovina. The basic recipe is simple and very rustic. Pigs’ legs are fried, or rather melted, in the pan, invariably with chopped onion. They are doused first with water and then with wine. Once this basic stock is prepared, pieces of meat are added, usually pork cutlets. The secret of a good flavour lies in gentle, slow cooking, as opposed to the fast grilling technique.
Recipes for kotlovina are varied and, in contrast to the recipe for the basic stock, can be very complex. The meat used can come in the form of sausages; but it can be chicken, veal, yearling beef, even game. All root vegetables, tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, even young beans and mushrooms find their way into a kotlovina in order to make the flavour as rich as possible. Potato is served to soak up the juices. When the abundance of ingredients becomes too much, the true connoisseurs return to the puritan Samobor version.

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Activities of Croatian capital precede its very existence, since back in the 19th century lively, often acrimonious, discussions raged over the location of Zagreb’s central marketplace -what it should look like, who should build it, maintain it and, of course, who should use it.
For centuries, Zagreb has been trading in the open and in accordance with strict rules. Records dating from 1425 tell us that trading in fresh fish was defined with far more precision than it is today: should they happen upon fresh fish that had been on display for too long, the unforgiving market inspectors of the day would cut off the tails of such fish, thus reducing them to second class goods.
The history of Dolac, from the first initiative for its construction to its opening day, provides excellent material for a chronicle of scandals, one which, nevertheless, did have a happy ending. Today, this is a market with an open-air section and a covered area on two levels, logically organized, well laid out and free flowing. The supply primarily reflects seasonal food production by regions.
The most interesting in this wide selection of produce are products by small, family agricultural holdings. Although economic logic dictates that small producers should work together in order to survive the onslaught of cheap goods from the world markets, the logic of gastronomy shows us that small producers provide a fantastic impetus to quality produce and, in particular, to a high standard of gastronomy.
Goods are sometimes more expensive on Dolac than on other Croatian markets, but that is logical: regional markets are mostly supplied by local producers; to Zagreb markets they bring the best that they can offer. Dolac is therefore a daily meeting place for the culinary stars of Zagreb, known and unknown. In their own words, this is where they start cooking.
According to Ana Ugarkovi?, the rising star of the Zagreb gastronomic stage, good cuisine consists of 90% of good buys. The ability to select the best ingredients at the optimal time in the season is the basic art of a good gastronome, one upon which top quality cuisine is based all over the world. From Dolac, chefs return to their respective restaurants in which they offer their guests regional specialties, first and foremost those from Dalmatia, but also from Istria, Slavonia, Prigorje, Zagorje, the best dishes from Lika and Gorski kotar, but also from some Croatian communities outside Croatia – in particular Herzegovinian and Bosnian specialties.
Fish is often equally fresh in the restaurants of Zagreb as it is on the coast; the season of lamb from the islands begins in Zagreb; the first white truffles are just as impatiently awaited in Zagreb as they are in Istria; selections of top of the range kulens regularly arrive to chosen locations in Zagreb; a special gastronomic week is dedicated to oysters from the Bay of Ston and the Lim channel in spring, on the feast day of St. Joseph, when they are in their seasonal peak.
But Zagreb also nurtures its own, authentic dishes known as “burghers’ cuisine”. This cuisine is the historical sediment of Austro-Hungarian cultural heritage. Some names and expressions are of German origin, some are Austrian and Hungarian, and they are still in use today. Grenadir marš (Grenadier March -pasta with onion and potato), kajzeršmarn (Kaiserschmarn, a dessert made from pancake batter) appear from time to time on the menus of Zagreb’s restaurants which like sailing the nostalgic waves of the purger cuisine.

Carp and trout are the most common fresh water fish found on Croatian markets, since they are bred in a number of fish farms. Those in the know, however, are aware that the range of fish on offer is far more varied: catfish and horned pout (liked for practical reasons because it has no small bones, just the spine) can often be found in continental fishmongers. Somewhat rarer is the very tasty pike perch and pike. Rarely, one can chance upon tench, somewhat fatty but with an exquisite flavour.
At Zagreb’s Dolac Market, it has recently been possible to purchase, at a more than reasonable price, smoked common bream -very tasty fish, best appreciated by the very patient connoisseur, as it is full of tiny bones. Eels cannot be bred in captivity but they do appear in fishmongers’ shops.
Among other types of fish found in clear and cold rivers and which are of interest to gastronomes, is the grayling, but one has to catch it oneself, since it almost never appears in the markets.
A dish known as paprikash made from fish and therefore logically known as fish paprikash, is regarded as one of the most outstanding specialties of Slavonia, which can also be found in Zagreb, particularly on Fridays.
A good fish paprikas demands as many types of fish as possible and it is cooked in a small (or sometimes not so small) cauldron over an open fire. Its main spice is paprika, both hot and sweet.

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Californian trout have spread throughout the fresh waters of Europe, Croatia included. But in certain locations the indigenous Croatian brown trout (Salmo trutta morpha fario) has survived, and it is indeed a specialty of the first order.
It is identifiable by its red spots, its meat being significantly more reddish, juicer and flavoursome than Californian trout. The brown trout is preserved in the Gacka River -a cult fishing ground for trout lovers from all over the world, and it can also be found in the Rivers Slunj?ica and ?abranka.
The locally preferred method of preparing it is to douse it in corn meal and to fry it (the miller’s way). There is a company called “Leko” which produces excellent smoked trout, which can be found on Zagreb’s Dolac Market.