To Wash Down a Serbian Autumn, Sad Songs and Clear Plum Brandy
By CHRIS HEDGES
Published: Friday, October 31, 1997
.The sweet smell of plums, boiling in a huge copper vat, mingled with the dry scent of autumn to mark the start of another yearly ritual in the life of a small Serbian farming village.
''This will be very pure this year,'' said Djordje Milenkovic, 80, as he puttered around his still in a broad-rimmed beekeeper's hat. ''The plums this year are beautiful.''
Serbs, from the haughty upper crust in Belgrade's posh Dedinje neighborhood to the farmers in remote hamlets in Bosnia, always have at hand bottles of clear plum brandy known as sljivovica, or slivovitz. It is homemade, usually by the family, can have a staggeringly high proof, and is downed at any time of the day in small, clear shot glasses. To refuse the stuff is to court ridicule if not anger. And after several glasses, invariably, Serbian men begin to sing the sad folk songs chronicling past defeats, of which there are many, and lost loves, of which there seem to be many more.
''I'm getting old so I can't work quite as much as I used to after a few drinks,'' said Velimir Milojevic, 64. ''When I get drunk now I am useless, but my old lady never says a word when I am sitting around at night. She always waits until I wake up with a hangover to harangue me.''
Good sljivovica is rarely sold, and daily doses color the life of many Serbs, whose common gregariousness and charm can be matched by a maddening indolence.
The ritual of drinking is primarily a male one, although women in polite company will have one or two shots.
''It is not considered good manners for a woman to drink too much,'' said Nada Milenkovic, 70, who sat making Turkish coffee in the small brick shed near her family's orchard. ''Drunken women are not considered very respectable.''
Dr. Tanja Lazarevic, 36, who was visiting the Milenkovic family in this village, five miles east of Prokuplje, walked in wobbling black high heels and a tight red mini-skirt through the round splotches of discarded plum juice and pits that colored the dirt yard like huge polka dots.
''I tell my patients that it is good to have a glass before a meal and good to have a glass after a meal,'' she said, lighting a cigarette. ''But the problem is that most Serbs don't understand the concept of self-control. Serbs have this need to do something in excess. My husband doesn't drink, but he eats too much. And look at the way I smoke. We are not Swiss. We still have a problem getting used to watches and alarm clocks. We follow our biological rhythms.''
The village, a collection of white-washed houses with red-tiled roofs, is in a valley known for its fruit orchards. Most farmers also make wine and rakija, a brandy that can be produced from pears, peaches, grapes or apples. The ripe fruit is stored in barrels for two months and then boiled in the stills each autumn into a vapor that cools and drips into oak barrels. The brandy is aged from six months to a few years.
But it is the quality of the sljivovica alone that defines a Serbian household. Serbs, rarely given to understatement, are often convinced that their family's plum brandy is the best. They are ready to belittle their neighbor's products for being distilled in dirty vats, made of inferior fruit, mixed with sugar or additives or not properly aged.
''I don't trust anyone else's sljivovica but my own, because I know mine is pure,'' said Mr. Milenkovic, who spent World War II in a German prisoner-of-war camp. ''People are not as careful or reputable as they were when I was a boy.''
Tito's Communist Government set up a huge distillery in Prokuplje 40 years ago to mass-produce the brandy. The result was a disaster, not only because of mismanagement, but because of the poor quality of the product as well. The factory was shut down about seven years ago.
''We became known as the region that produced the best and the worst sljivovica,'' said Dr. Lavarevic.
Ljubisa Milenkovic, 42, worked with his parents dropping plums into the vat for boiling. The former high school teacher volunteered to fight against the secessionist Croats in 1991 and then the Bosnian Muslims in 1992 and was part of a special Bosnian Serb commando team. In 1994, disgusted by what he said was the savagery towards civilians and depressed over the death of his closest friend, he deserted and came home. He has not worked since, living in a small room in his parent's home.
''I had to go fight,'' he said with a smile. ''Serbs only get to go to war every 50 years. I didn't want to lose my chance.''
But then his mood fell and he began to speak softly.
''I have a hard time adjusting,'' he said, ''especially to the silence, to the peace of village life. I do not believe this war was like others, it was worse. It was barbarous.''
The brief melancholy was dispelled when Mr. Milenkovic turned over a blue plastic barrel. He laid out a bottle and a few shot glasses on the upturned bottom. The group clinked glasses, toasting each other with the traditional ''Zivili!'' -- ''To Life!'' -- and swiftly downed the burning brandy.
''I like to drink until the alcohol takes over my body,'' said Dr. Lazarevic. ''What is life without passion?''
Photo: This time of year, the Serbs in the countryside make plum brandy, or slivovitz. In Rasovaca Donja recently, a cheerful toast was proposed in front of the shed where the Milenkovic family makes the burning drink. (Alan Chin for The New
Topic: Serbian cuisine (Read 3223 times)