About

Two archaeologists that can't decide whether they prefer a ladle or a trovel, who like to travel and to enjoy a good food from around the world. Have worked together on different archaeological sites and now work together in a kitchen. Our connection with the past, history, archaeology, outdoors, nature and earth is clearly visible in the blog's theme and colors that are not your usual food blog „item“. Also, there is always a photo of a place that can be connected with the recipe in some way (whether some of the ingredients grow there, or it's a place of origin, or it's a dish that can be taken to a trip/picnic/hiking... and the photo is showing outdoors somewhere) - in that way we also want to introduce beautiful nature and places of our country to the world.

After a long time of thinking about should we do it or not, we've decided to start a recipe page/blog to introduce traditional Croatian cuisine to the world and also many other recipes that we've tried and liked from all around the globe (we've started with local cuisine and our own recipes). The recipe base is still small but it'll grow slowly. Of course, you cannot post few hundred recipes all at once. ;-)

In Croatia we have established Pepper cookie Society (Croatian: Udruga "Paprenjak") for our passion to have a legal ground. We're organizing workshops and food sampling (for now at our homes for our friends-members) while using recipes from all around the world but we're paying special attention to traditional Croatian dishes and cakes using our grannies' old recipes (you can find them on this page under Croatian Cuisine). The Society also produces old traditional Croatian cookies and pastries that either can't be found in any pastry shop or can be found in just a few of them scattered across the country. One day we're hoping to expand the business and make those wonderful sweets available to many more people and tourists so they can taste the original flavors of Croatia.

When making cakes and torte, we're avoiding decorating with fondant. We prefer doing it "the old way", the way of our grandmothers. We're decorating cakes with chocolate icing, with cream filling (frosting), chopped nuts, fruits etc. Fondant figures and decorations are wonderful to see, but we feel those would fit better into sculpting competitions rather than into cake business. Some are really wonderful and amazing pieces of art and you just can't but be fascinated and astonished. But what we want to say is: what's the use of it if you have to throw it away/remove it to get to the eatable part of the cake? At least we can't eat that. It waaaaaay waaaaay toooo sweet. We like to make cakes that can be eaten whole, from the top to the bottom, from one side to the other. :-)

Likewise, when cooking other dishes, we avoid artificial ingredients as much as possible but, of course, frozen or canned vegetables, fruits and stuff like that do help a lot. Especially if fresh ones are not available at a certain part of the year or aren't available at all in the country (we can stand on our heads but many "exotic" fruits and vegetables can't be found in Croatia nor fresh or canned. Not to mention spices…). Bouillon (stock) cubes are of great help too as most people usually don't have any amount of stock in store. You make it, you eat it and that's it. You can't keep it in your fridge for a month waiting for a time you will need it. And making a whole pot when you need just 500 ml for a dish… makes no sense. So, due to convenience, our recipes do contain canned or frozen ingredients (but you can always substitute with fresh ones ;-) ). Hope you won't mind ;-)

 
Dishes and cakes that we make and present to you are something that anybody can make at home. We don't have any special skills, we've never attended any cooking courses and all we know, we've learned by ourselves through practice with many failures. So our goal is not to try making and to make pieces of art from food but rather something that anybody can cook and prepare for themselves or their family. In a way, our motto is "KEEPING IT SIMPLE“ – simple recipes, simple dishes, simple cakes and simple decorations. Although some might take more time to be made, they're still simple. Meaning – you can do it, anybody can do it. And it can be done in a very small kitchen and without special equipment. Just ask us… For example, Linda's kitchen is of size less than 4 square meters and only 1 person fits in it. Working surface is so small that almost nothing can be rolled on it. Luckily, there's dinning table…. The only special equipment that we have is food processor (multipractic). Nothing more and nothing less. But we do have what is the most important - our imagination and our hands to put together simple things into tasty meal and delicious dessert.

Special note: all recipes on this page have been made, tasted and adjusted by us. And our families and friends are the ones that enjoyed those dishes and cakes. That's why some photos are not of very good quality as there were hungry people at the table waiting for a meal (and more than a few times there was a rather large party waiting). And you can't tell them: "Wait till I take a perfect photo for my recipe site." Right? ;-) So you have to improvise with a bad light and in a hurry. Not to mention that our places actually don't have a good spot for taking photos and light is so bad everywhere. Making a good photo is usually a real challenge.

What we're trying to say, we're not making dishes just for this site and, unfortunately, we neither have the time nor the money for that. So everything that was cooked was actually served to someone (who was hungry and waiting for a meal), meaning it was cooked to feed people, not to take a perfect photo. :-D We also don't have professional photography equipment. Our cameras are quite old and have done a lot of field work on archaeological sites before becoming "kitchen cameras". Situation is like that for now. Hopefully, we'll at least get our hands on a nice new camera sometime soon ;-)

We hope you will enjoy the stay and let's cook some delicious meals together. :-)

COPYRIGHT POLICY
All contents of Culinary Globetrotting, excluding comments written by others, are copyrighted © Culinary Globetrotting and Udruga Paprenjak (Pepper Cookie Society). All rights reserved. Please do not copy or republish the contents (either in electronic or non-electronic publication) without the written permission by us. We do not mind anyone to publish our recipes on their site or blog or anywhere else, but please link back to the original recipe and our blog (all that after receiving the permission from us). Thank you! :-)