Serbia

Serbian Orthodox Christmas follows the Julian calendar and falls on January 7. Christmas Eve, Badnji dan, is the last day of the fast: meat and dairy are avoided, the badnjak, a special branch or log, is burned, and the evening meal is built on dishes such as pečeni šaran and meatless pasulj. The main feast comes on Christmas Day. It opens with česnica, a bread with a coin hidden inside that is broken by hand with a prayer, and continues with sarma, roast pork and ruska salata. Guests are traditionally greeted with a small glass of rakija.

The Serbian chapter follows the Orthodox winter of fasts and slavas. Prebranac, baked white beans, and punjene suve paprike, dried peppers with a lenten filling, are meatless dishes for fast days. Slavsko žito, boiled wheat with walnuts, is the ritual dish of the slava, the family feast of its patron saint, where kisela čorba, a sour chicken soup, is also served. Pihtije, pork aspic, is cooked on Krstovdan and eaten at Epiphany on January 19. Podvarak bakes sauerkraut with pork, gibanica is the cheese phyllo pie of holiday tables, and vanilice are Christmas and New Year cookies.

The Serbian menu starts with Kajmak i ajvar, ripened kajmak and slow-cooked roasted red pepper relish set out with warm bread. The main course is Karađorđeva šnicla, a thin schnitzel rolled around kajmak, breaded and fried, created in Belgrade in 1956 or 1957. February 14 is also the feast of Sveti Trifun, patron of winemakers, so pour a Serbian white. Dessert is Šampita, squares of egg whites whipped with hot syrup on a crisp base.

Serbian Orthodox Easter falls on May 2, 2027. The eggs come first: farbana jaja, dyed red-brown in onion skins with leaf prints, are made during Holy Week, most often on Good Friday, April 30, and families crack them against each other on Easter morning. Vaskršnja pogača, a braided Easter bread, holds dyed eggs in its center or between its strands. The Easter lunch centers on roast lamb with new potatoes, with šopska salata on the side and jagnjeća čorba, lamb soup, for the season. Pita zeljanica, a spring greens pie, tufahije, a fasting sweet of poached apples, and reforma torta complete the menu.