It was supposed I was a vegan: I was, past tense.

Passport & Plate - Црногорски Сарма

Montenegro | Monday, March 2, 2015 | 5 photos

Ingredients
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8 cabbage leaves

200g minced pork

200g short grain rice

50g green olives (chopped)

50g mushrooms (chopped)

1 carrot (chopped)

½ onion (chopped)

2 garlic cloves (chopped)

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp vegeta seasoning

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp oregano

1 bay leaf

??? (OPTIONAL)

1 cup of plain yogurt

½ lemon

½ cucumber (chopped)

2 fresh mint leaves (chopped)

 

How to prepare this recipe
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1. Put ½ l water on heat and, when it boils, add cabbage to it. After 15 min, remove leaves, place them in a bowl and let them stay in ½ l cold water for 15 min more. Drain and keep.

2. Cook rice with bay leaf in the same water you've used before. Drain and keep.

3. Put a frying pan with a touch of olive oil on heat. Add garlic and onion finely chopped.

4. After 5 min, bring meat, rice, carrot, olives and mushrooms together in the pan and season.

5. Fill every cabbage leaf with the mix and roll them up. Be sure they stay well tight.

6. Put every roll in the pot you've been using and cover them with more water if needed. Cook for 15 min, turn the heat off and let cool.

7. Drain ????? and serve them on a platter.

???

1. Mix plain yogurt with cucumber finely chopped, juice from half a lemon and fresh mint.

2. Serve ??? in a cup.

 

The story behind this recipe
It was supposed I was a vegan: I was, past tense. That came to an end when I got to Montenegro. I was pretty sure I could keep my diet here, but I hadn't noticed what a meat&dairy-lovers Montenegrins were.

10 days after getting to Podgorica, I was invited by a local family to have a traditional lunch in Nikšic, such an amazing offer to be declined. It was freezing outside, snowing actually, but, as soon as they brought wood to the chimney, I started to feel like in heaven. I didn't mind that family's head didn't speak English at all: communication between us just needed smiles and the smell from homemade bread she was baking to be fluent. At 4 PM, we all gathered around the table to enjoy delicacies she had been cooking for almost 4 hours. Then, I realized that almost every course on it was made of pork and/or cheese. I was in such a bind: I didn't want to seem ungrateful after the extraordinary treatment I'd been receiving, but I didn't want to betray my convictions either just to show gratitude, so I served myself a kind of cabbage rolls called ?????. From the very first bite, I sensed a kind of known flavor that I thought I had forgotten. I couldn't help but stop and say: "I'm vegan". Suddenly, an uncomfortable silence came to the table and every eye turned on me. I didn't know if they felt displeased or just didn't know what that meant; I didn't know I was about changing my point of view either.

The interesting debate we held during lunch time made me take my values about animal rights in a different way. I wondered how would humans' lives be if we'd never used animals to feed ourselves, if removing such an essential component, not just from our diets, but from our culture and identity would make any sense, and I got to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong about eating meat, fish, eggs or dairy as long as we produce them sustainably. As you could imagine, ????? brought me back to omnivorism.

It was supposed I was a vegan: I was, past tense.