Slava -- Open House Serb Style

Beth toasting St. George at Slava in Dojboj
Ceca and dad, our hosts
Dessert: in case you didn't eat enough pigmeat

Sunday (5/6) was a big day in the CIN social calendar -- the day of Svjetlana (Ceca to us) family's Slava. This is a great Serb custom in which a family celebrates a patron saint considered it protector. They do this with Church stuff, but more important to my story, by opening their home to any and all who wish to drop by. Ceca actually invited some of her coworkers -- at least those who eat pigmeat -- to share table space with her sister, aunts and cousins.

A giant table was set up through the middle of the house and set with colorful dishes and an orchid arrangement.

Prettier still were these great platters of pork -- cut into thick ovals of meat and fat. This main course was preceeded and followed by a rich veal soup, sarma (stuffed cabbage) salads and platters of stuffed figs and cakes. We ate this for lunch then sat down again a few hours later for round two of the same as dinner. And all of this was drenched in glass after glass of rakia, Bosnian moonshine made out of plums. Ceca's father, in fact, met us as we stepped out of the car from Sarajevo with a bottle and shotglasses. I felt out of it for the rest of the day after downing that offering.

If the food was the biggest attraction, Ceca's family's house in Dojboj (pronounced "Doughboy" as in how we felt after being at the house) was the next lure.

It is a little cottage surrounded by flower beds with a mini farm attached. Her father took us around proudly to see piglets, bees, chicken, dogs and a fish pond. We gushed over the piglets wondering if we'd eaten their relatives and fed the fish the same great bread we'd eaten. They boiled up over the slices like piranha. Drew playing big man with Ceca's father asked questions to keep him talking that had us sniggering: how do you tell the roosters from the hens? How big does the pig have to get before you eat it?

Exactly how the family got St. George as its protector they couldn't tell us. Saints are passed down from father to son and slavas are big family celebrations like our Thanksgiving. Apparently St. George is the second most-popular Serb family protector after St. Nicholas and ahead of St. John the Baptist.