Old Menus
Introduction
During our visit to the Museum of the City of Novi Sad, we had the opportunity to look through old menus and cookbooks that reflect the way people lived and cooked in Vojvodina and Serbia, as well as the cookware once used to prepare food. In the following text, we offer a closer look at these records and exhibits.
The Great Serbian Cookbook by Katarina Popović Midžina
The Great Serbian Cookbook by Katarina Popović Midžina was first published in the late 19th century and is considered one of the most important works of Serbian culinary literature. The edition we had the opportunity to see at the Museum of the City of Novi Sad dates from the early 20th century and stands as a valuable document from a time when cooking was understood as serious knowledge and as part of both culture and everyday life.
With the museum’s kind permission, we were able to look through this book and note down passages that clearly show why it remains relevant today. The cookbook is not structured as a simple list of recipes, but as a system, clearly organized by types of ingredients, types of dishes, and methods of preparation. It shows that households at the time paid attention to the season, the purpose of each dish, and the overall organization of the kitchen.
How Meals Were Approached in the Past
The book shows that a meal was not seen as a single dish, but as a whole. It makes a clear distinction between everyday meals and festive meals, between food served immediately and food planned in advance for specific occasions. The method of preparation depended on the purpose of the meal and the context in which it was served.
Special attention was given to the table itself—to the arrangement of dishes on serving platters, the carving of meat, the placement of food on the table, and the manner of serving. These details show that the appearance of a meal was considered just as important as the preparation itself, and that food was seen as a social act, not merely a necessity.
Types of Recipes in the Book
The book contains recipes for homemade soups and stews, vegetable dishes, various kinds of paprikaš, roasts and dishes in sauce, as well as desserts such as pies, cakes, and creams. A special section is devoted to sauces, side dishes, and basic cooking techniques, offering a clear insight into how flavors were built and how dishes were combined within a single meal.
A page from The Great Serbian Cookbook with explanations and illustrations, intended as a practical cooking guide for housewives.
A page from The Great Serbian Cookbook with explanations and illustrations, intended as a practical cooking guide for housewives.
Interesting Details from the Book
Beef is divided by cut, each with a clearly defined purpose: ribs and shank for soups and long cooking, shoulder for paprikaš and dishes in sauce, and loin for roasting.
Pigeon and duck appear in specific dishes: boiled and roasted pigeon, as well as duck cooked in sauce and roast duck.
Snails are shown as boiled and baked in sauce, with a clearly described method of preparation.
Pilaf is presented as a dish in its own right, in versions with meat, with poultry, and in a meatless version.
Strudels were not only sweet—in the book, there are also meat and cheese strudels, served as a full meal.
This book offers a concrete insight into what was actually cooked, how meals were planned, and what the everyday kitchen of that time looked like. If you want to understand the foundations of Serbian gastronomy without myths or oversimplifications, The Great Serbian Cookbook is a source worth paying attention to.
The Krasojević Family Handwritten Cookbook (1878)
During our visit to the City Museum of Novi Sad, Sremski Karlovci Homeland Collection, we had the opportunity to see a handwritten cookbook from 1878 that belonged to the family of Đorđe Krasojević. This cookbook shows that even at that time, wealthier households already had order, knowledge, and a serious approach to cooking, far removed from improvisation and random notes.
It contains carefully recorded recipes with measurements for rolls, cakes, flatbreads, and even ice cream, which clearly shows that households of that time prepared a wide range of more elaborate dishes.
What Kitchenware Looked Like in the Late 19th Century
During our visit to the City Museum of Novi Sad, Sremski Karlovci Homeland Collection, we were also able to see and photograph the permanent exhibition of a peasant kitchen, reconstructed on the basis of preserved ethnological objects from the Fruška Gora area. The exhibition shows what village life and everyday cooking looked like in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The exhibition includes kitchen items of the kind once used in households across Fruška Gora: clay pots, bowls, jugs, wooden spoons, strainers, and containers for storing food. For many visitors, such objects bring back memories, because they were used by their grandmothers and great-grandmothers in village homes in this region.
An iron stove with an oven and firebox, used in households in the late 19th century for everyday cooking and baking. Example from the Local Heritage Collection in Sremski Karlovci.
An iron stove with an oven and firebox, used in households in the late 19th century for everyday cooking and baking. Example from the Sremski Karlovci Homeland Collection
We would like to thank the staff of the Museum of the City of Novi Sad for giving us the opportunity to see and document this exhibition. Anyone who wants to get a closer look at what the village kitchen of Fruška Gora looked like at that time can see it in Sremski Karlovci.
Source of Photographs
City Museum of Novi Sad and the Sremski Karlovci Homeland Collection