Taste Diversity

Timiș lies in Banat, right at the country’s edge. On one side there’s Hungary, on the other Serbia, and folks have lived together here for hundreds of years, each in their own way. Romanians, Swabians, Hungarians, Serbs, Bulgarians, Russians, Ruthenians and Roma all passed through this land, and each left something behind — in the houses, in the clothes, in the words people speak, and most of all, in the food.

Around here, village and town aren’t split by fences. Tradition is still kept alive through gatherings like Mic Dejun la Margina, Banat Brunch, or the local food houses, places where time slows down a bit and food tastes just like it does at home, the way we know it.

Banat food is plenty, good, and made with sense. It’s the cooking of hardworking people, meant to keep hunger away and bring the family together at the table. Many peoples have lived here, and you can taste that in the dishes, passed down from one generation to the next, each putting its own order and flavour into the pot.

On our tables you’ll find chicken soup with homemade noodles, goulash soup, sour soups with tarragon, zacuscă, papricaș, cabbage cooked down with sausages, old-style stuffed cabbage rolls, stuffed onions, bean soup with smoked bacon, pleșcaviță, boiled beef with tomato sauce, roasts with potatoes, fruit compotes, and cakes made at home.

Most dishes are filling, with thick sauces made the old way, with a bit of roux, thinned with bone or vegetable broth and finished off with sour cream, just like it’s been done from the old folks’ time.

Our stuffed cabbage rolls are known for being big and hearty, with the meat chopped rough, by cleaver, not ground too fine. They come out large — near the size of a fist — and they’ll fill you up good.

Păturata pe crumpi is an old dish of ours, made with potatoes — crumpi, as we call them here. It comes from the Swabians, close to what they call Strudlknedle, dumplings cooked right in the pot.

The filling is made from fresh curd cheese, a bit of brined cheese, eggs and dill, as much as feels right. The dough is rolled into spirals and boiled together with the potatoes and smoked meat, well seasoned with paprika, bay leaf, salt and pepper. It’s simple food, but it sticks to your ribs and brings back the taste of home.

In Banat villages, there’s no Ignat without a pig being slaughtered. That’s the old rule. That’s when pomana porcului is cooked and eaten right away, with sauerkraut, for good taste and for strength.

From the pig you get sausages heavy with paprika, clisă — cured pork fat — smoked ham (șonc), lard, suet, head cheese, liver pâté (leber or maioș), blood sausage, caltaboș, borândău, meat kept in brine, or roast meat stored in lard. Once, all this fed a family for the whole year.

Not long after, crackling biscuits — pogăcele — are made, from fresh cracklings drained of fat and browned just right, crisp on the outside, tender inside. These are set out for guests, along with a glass of plum brandy, the way it’s done around here.

Banat is known, too, for its sweets, made slow and with care. Folks love crofne (doughnuts), coarda and cuglul (filled sweet breads), sweet pies and risen dough pastries, strudel, cremșnit (custard slices), Apfelkuchle (apple fritters), plum dumplings, cream horns, Banat-style pancakes, layered tortes, and cakes like Isler or Dobos.

Iofca is a sweet noodle dish mixed with cheese, walnuts, poppy seeds, milk or cabbage, while Varga Beles is a baked pudding of homemade noodles with curd cheese and raisins, wrapped in pastry and baked in the oven.

Banat pancakes, also called “Ana Lugojana pancakes”, are rolled much like stuffed cabbage leaves and filled with curd cheese, sour cream and raisins. They’re laid into a buttered dish, covered with vanilla sauce and baked, then finished with a light layer of meringue, just browned.

They can be eaten plain or with fruit or chocolate sauce — a sweet ending to a meal, the way it ought to be.