Tags
Baking, Balkan, Bread, Easter, family historian, family history, Google, Jesus, Nell, Pillsbury Doughboy, potica, Slovenia, writing
Easter is just around the corner. Last year was kinda fun, as my sister and I dragged out box after box of old family photos and held a full out scanner fest. But as the Bunny fires up for egg painting this year, my nerves feel a bit jumpy already. I will once again be challenged (expected, assumed. pressured) to bake the traditional Slovenian treat for our family…the Potica. For those of you with no Balkan heritage…it’s “Po-teets-zah.” For me, it’s a Panic Attack. Now this is by no means the first time I’ve made the Potica. It’s been my job now for several years since my Grandma quit baking it. Apparently this skips a generation, so my aunts and mom just crowned me Princess Potica and before I knew it…I was in charge.So, I make it for each of the big family celebrations, and then, kind of like Jesus, I take a beating for it. Let me clarify that ~ I make the complicated yeast and nut delight, and then sit back and listen to everyone else critique it, and wax poetic over the Poticas (the real Poticas) of days gone by.
How I haven’t spent a holiday in jail yet I do not know.
Oh, I get it. I really do. I understand why I am the one who is saddled with the honor of carrying on an old country tradition. I can bake. And I am really good at it. I had my own coffee house for several years, and baked everything that went out the door. But the problem with Potica (and in your family it could be aunt Nell’s potato salad) is that there is only one right way, one right recipe, and one right presentation that can be accepted and deigned as perfect. Unfortunately, no one who went before me actually wrote the damn recipe down for “the real Potica“, exactly as they made it “when it was perfect“.
Let’s revisit that last line: I want you to experience it as I hear it each time I offer up a Potica. Say it for yourself aloud
with your nose crinkled up,
as if you are chewing an adult aspirin,
and it is stuck to the back of your tongue and you only have scalding hot coffee available to wash it down with..
now say the words.. like the real Potica, when it was perfect….
Is there a tear in the corner of your eye as if you have just been deeply harmed and dissappointed? Good. You’re getting the general tone of voice they use for Potica critiqing. We can continue now
When my oldest daughter was receiving First Communion, we had a little ceremony a couple of days ahead of time, where each family was to involve their child in baking a loaf of bread and then bring it to church with all their classmates and their families for a special blessing of the loaves. For Caitlin, I thought it would be cool, and perhaps more special to her if together we made Potica. Since this was a sort of last minute thing, I went to the internet and trolled for some recipes. This was the first time I had actually seen the word spelled out. Luckily, I hit a site where the pronunciation was spelled out phonetically so was close to how I had “searched” for it (this was way before Google). I looked through until I found a recipe (in English) that sounded about right. We sifted, kneaded, rolled, filled and baked with delightful anticipation. The smell in the kitchen was heaven.
Blessing of the loaves day was probably a little traumatizing for Cait. Many of my Mom friends had chumped-out (having never baked bread before) and had purchased the frozen, thaw and bake stuff. Their loaves were glorious mounds of buttery gold crusts. The Pillsbury Doughboy bakes up like a champ every time. Our Potica (and yes we made 2 just to have a shot at choosing the best looking one to show off at church) looked like hemorrhaging cinnamon raisin bagels glopped together. Not stellar.
After that “experience” I started checking around within the family for a good recipe. Oddly, no one ever seemed to be able to put their hands on one. That was probably 20 years ago. Eventually,having learned my lesson, I gave up asking. Clearly, some family things are strictly on a “need to know basis.” As the older women in my family line all began passing on to their reward, the Potica making pool got smaller and smaller. When Grandma Jean announced that she would be taking up residence in a rest home, suddenly, the baking baton was passed on to me. Sans the recipe of course!
Luckily, my friend Karen gifted me with this well worn and dearly loved cookbook that had belonged to her Aunt Udi. Udi had been the Potica maker for her family. Karen naturally had no idea which of the more than 2 dozen recipes for the bread was Udi’s favorite, so I have been baking my way thru the book holiday after holiday. With of course, all the feed back I can stand.
I’ll be on version #18 soon, wish me luck
This looks amazingly delicious
Ok, you and your family can come over on Easter…just keep sayin that extra loud!
Is this similar to a Povitica? Because my Dad’s mother used to hand make this every summer, when we came up to visit her.
that’s it!
Mmmm….soo good
I guess there are some benefits to having no traditional family recipes to pass down.
haha…no kidding!
Oh my gosh! I’m drooling! And why is it that the most delightful confections take the most work? My mom made these Swedish coffee cakes at Christmas – nine hours of rolling, setting, rolling… well, you get the idea. I took over for a few Christmas when she finally announced she was done – after 37 years and hundreds of coffee cakes, she would do it no more. Thankfully, my two sister-in-laws have picked up where i left off! Who wants to spend so many hours right at the holidays working like that? And still your story reminds me of my mom – especially when she misplaced the recipe for a few years and it “didn’t work”.
Ah well – traditions, right?
A side note, a see a massive link in your post – is that to the recipe? Or maybe my wordpress didn’t load right? Cause, being a sucker, I just might have to give it a try…
Oh you know how I am with the Linky Linky thing. I’m gonna try this latest hybrid and see if it works. If it does, I’ll post it next week. It really is worth it, but good Lord! Can’t they just for once eat the stuff and smile the whole time?
Maybe they should be required to make it BEFORE they’re allowed to eat it? I, for one, will never make that danged coffee cake for my hubbie’s family again. They just didn’t get enthused enough, you know? My brothers, however, remember all those sleepless nights with our dear old mum slaving away in the kitchen! They – they deserve the coffee cake.
Good luck on that link thingy – I really am curious about the recipe!
Great family story! Don’t forget to include the “real” recipe when you finally work it out. And pass it on to your daughter so she will continue the tradition!
heck, if I ever get a consensus on the finished product as being “it” I’m gonna take out a billboard or something…in addition to a really obnoxious happy dance
That looks so good – wish you were in my family tree, I’d be round for Easter! You’ve also inspired me to bake a simnel cake like my mum always does!
Helen, Helen~ you cannot leave us hanging~ what is a “simnel cake”?
Okay – it’s tasty. I wouldn’t like to put it in a competition with your beautiful Easter creation, but here goes – roughly: a simnel cake is a fruit and marzipan cake. The cake batter has quite a bit of dried fruit and I would say from the taste lots of ground almonds. Pop half the batter in the tin, place on a chunky layer of marzipan, and pour on rest of batter and bake. When cold roll out another piece of marzipan, place on top, and add 11 balls of marzipan – one for each of the disciples – apart from Judas (who is out by this stage – as the cake is served (in my family) on Easter Sunday. I’ll get the ‘proper’
recipe from my mum and share it on my blog. x
that does sound good:)
Well I say ignore the negative! it looks amazing! Thankfully I have managed to dodge the family tradition bullet aside from having the family all visit each other on different holidays. Christmas at my house New Years at my Aunts etc. Although next time im in the mood for baking which isnt often, i used to be a baker too I may just try a Potica!
mmm–it looks delicious.
Good luck! It sounds like a lot of fun to try a different version of the recipe each year.
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Over the past 40 years we have suffered decades of the corporate mascot in infantile form with his “sweet” squeaky little voice. I’m referring to the Pillsbury Doughboy. Now he’s sporting his backpack strolling from the TSA check point in a Geico commercial while singing La La La ing to the banjo music in his squeaky little cute sweet and practically infantile voice. There have been noble attempts to counter this media sentiment by blowing him up, microwaving, shooting it and burning him in effigy. I can only say: “Nice try.” Unfortunately these cheesy home videos don’t scratch the psychological itch that can only be relieved by witnessing Pillsbury’s animated mascot impaled through his little sphincter to the top of his round little head on a rotisserie squirming screaming loosing control of his bladder and bowels and begging and sobbing in his cute squeaky trademark voice in his final hours as his well deserved gruesome demise FINALLY becomes a reality. There is a “Got Milk” commercial that I found on you tube but that was, at best, a tease. I want some “Vlad the Impaler” torture done to him. I’d even enjoy a chef wringing his body to frost a cake with his sweet fluffy ENTRAILS without passion or prejudice.
I sense “bitterness” in your tone J’Rome…is that accurate dear?
More like an itch I can’t reach to scratch.
hee hee