With evening prayer on Wednesday, a dear guest arrived – Ramadan, the holiest month of every Muslim, and Thursday wasthe first day of fasting.
A well-recognizable smell spreads through the neighborhoods of Sarajevo before iftar – the smell of Sarajevo flatbreads (somuni).
In the next 29 days, many will enjoy this piece of favorite pastry, which is an indispensable part of every Ramadan meal.
Bread ovens
Almost every neighborhood in Sarajevo has a bakery with a long tradition, from Bjelave, Vrbanjusa and Vratnik to Bistrik and Alifakovac… Everyone will agree on one thing – the secret, of course, is in the recipe that is passed down from “generation to generation”!
The masters of this craft will add another factor, no less important than the recipe. Flatbread must be baked in the traditional way – in wood-fired bread ovens!
The journalists decided to look for answers in the bakery “Bjelave” in the Sarajevo street and neighborhood of the same name, which is better known as the Krunic bakery among the citizens, especially the people from Bjelave and Mejtas.
It can often happen that some people can’t take flatbread because they are all sold! The owner Zdravko Krunic explained why is that.
“Tradition, first of all,“ Krunic told in a rush while he is already baking flatbreads.
The warm flatbread is lightly brushed with water for a practical and simple reason.
“A little flour can remain on a flatbread, and it looks much nicer,” Krunic reveals, while his son carries the finished flatbreads on old traditional wooden boards to the more beautiful part – to the shelves.
Flatbread and cevapi
How important flatbread is, is best shown by the fact that the owners of the most famous places with cevapi carefully choose which baker they buy this pastry from. Often their collaborations last for years. Each flatbread must have almost the same shape, thickness, weight…, Radio Sarajevo writes.
E.Dz.
