Meat on Bread: Cevapi, Bosnia

Through disparate human societies, cultures ancient to modern, one foundational culinary concept appears again and again. A unifying centre of community: nourishment, comfort, identity; it’s simplistic yet profound. We call it ‘meat on bread’.

The flight was ten hours. That’s flights, actually, though the transfer in Vienna took mere minutes, so perhaps I can be forgiven. Heathrow to Sarajevo, Vienna somewhere between, then an hour or two by bus on to Vitez. Through verdant green mountainsides and kaleidoscopic skies, ‘lush’ is the word for that bus ride. Lush, and probably ‘hot’.

We were on tour. Rugby League. The Great Britain & Ireland Pioneers, a ragtag mob of university students with ideas above our station and lacklustre hygiene standards. Our goal for the ten-day trip was to spread the one true way as we understood it; a Northern English sporting mission through which we’d administer the sacraments: the play the ball, the six again, the holy short ball to the lead runner, converting the unindoctrinated foreign masses to our cause as we went. We’d learn a bit about Bosnia & Herzegovina, too, a country most of us only knew in ‘war-torn’ obscurity.

Vitez; morning. The lush hot bus pulls up at the Motel Carousel and we hop off to meet our Bosnian contacts for the first time. To my shame the names are no longer with me. ‘Adel’, ‘Adin’, something in that region; maybe a Marko of some form. Let’s go with that. There was definitely a Duško (he later added me on Facebook), but he joined for leg two. Vitez was leg one. Vitez had the barbecue.

My memory is that Adin — six-foot-three, broad, hairy neck but head shaved clean — mentioned it before anything else. He, and Marko — six-foot-three, broad, hairier neck, head shaved cleaner — surely kicked off with the itinerary for our first three days, but among the training sessions, the cultural exchanges, and the obligatory trip to the water park, it was the barbecue they offered with the most pride. ‘You will have a feast’, Adin said. ‘Traditional Bosnian barbecue.’ Ten hours by plane, two more by bus. Nothing could sound more appealing.

But: the mission.

Beef cevapi and lepinja bread, here with ajvar and kajmak

Night one, the inaugural training session with the local side, Ragbi Liga Klub Vitez. Balls passed. Shoulders charged. Dummies run. Early to bed, wet towels over our bodies to combat the forty-degree heat. Rest. At last. Then day two, up early. Breakfast in the Carousel and the morning training session soon after, then the water park in the midday heat. A talk with our cultural liaison in the afternoon; a second training session in the early evening. For twenty student kids, a taste of the life of a modern professional sportsman. Living it, breathing it, sharing it together. Evening, bodies tired — back to the Carousel. Back to Adin. Back to Marko. Back to the promise of the feast.

The grill was already hot. From it, an inviting aroma of beef, steadily caramelising — minced meat formed into stubby ‘fingers’ about three inches long and one inch wide. These are cevapi (chuh-BA-pi, or close to that), the national dish of Bosnia & Herzegovina. All twenty of us, and the coaching staff too, gawped as Adin piled them into soft lepinja bread, and then each held out their plate such that Marko could throw on the obligatory white onion topping — raw, diced, punchy. This is food that cuts to the essence of humanity, food that builds societies, our cultures. Greater than the sum of its parts. Simple ingredients, simply cooked, but it’s in their marriage that they tantalise. The fat of the beef tackling the bread — comfort the result, a soft landing in an unctuous pillow. The onion there to bite through the heaviness, light on its feet, the sidestepping fullback in counter play to the heavy grunt of the beef-and-starch scrum.

Across the hotel courtyard, Pioneers and Bosnians made their best efforts at conversation, cevapi the starting point, the anchor, the summation of our shared understanding of the world. I stood between Adin and Marko. ‘Tomorrow, we play you’, Marko said, half statement, half question. Biting deep into the Balkan sandwich, I nodded my agreement. I began to speak, something about the food, perhaps, or about the game, the training session we’d shared the day before, who knows. But Marko held up a hand. ‘Tomorrow, we play you’, he offered again. ‘Tonight,’ he said, producing a tall bottle filled with a clear liquid, ‘rakiya!’

Živjeli! ⚭

Dan Johnson