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| Aščinica Hadžibajric's |
One
of my essential rituals in the morning after training is visiting
Hadzibajric's, my favorite ascinica, a storefront restaurant serving
cooked (as opposed to grilled or baked) Bosnian food. Nested in the
heart of Bascarsija, Hadzibajrlc's is a small place, so unassuming it is
easy to miss if you don't look. Inside, there are but a few shareable
tables, a menu with (low) prices hanging by the cash register, framed
articles praising the food on the wall, and a quote from the Quran above
the entrance. The same family has run the place since the 1860s, when
one of the ancestors cooked so well (the restaurant was then owned by an
Ottoman official) that everyone began calling it after the
cook-Hadzibajric's.
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| Aščinica Hadžibajric's |
Eight generations later, the ascinica is run by Mersiha, the
first woman in its history to be in charge. She spent nine years
learning the trade as an apprentice to her late father, Namik. He kept
no written recipes for any of their dishes, so the secrets of
preparation have been passed on from generation to generation, until the
dishes have been so perfected that it's hard to imagine how they could
ever get better. Hadzibajric's offers traditional Bosnian fare-various
stews and soups, meat, potatoes, and vegetables-whose names carry the
sound of ancient Ottoman poetry (papaz cevap, krzatma, sis cevap,
ekma, sitni cevap, and sogan-dolma) and might, in fact, be obscure to
many Bosnians outside Sarajevo, or indeed Bascarsija, Mersiha takes
great pride in possessing such an exclusive knowledge.
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| Aščinica Hadžibajric's |
The
Hadzibajrics have cooked for royalty. Mersiha's grand- father was, some
time before World War II, summoned to the royal court in Belgrade to
cook Bosnian specialties for the Yugoslav king. He had to taste everyone
of the dishes before His Majesty to show they were not poisoned. One of
the pictures on the ascinica wall features Otto von Habsburg, a
descendant of the family that once ruled over the vast territory that
included Bosnia. In another, Namik and a couple of staffers stand next
to the Spanish king Juan Carlos and his wife, looking comfortable in
their distinguished presence. The royal couple visited the restaurant in
1985, and Mersiha, who was just a child then, remembers the narrow
street outside being packed with secret -service agents.
Royalty notwithstanding, the ascinica is a fundamen- tally democratic
space. Because Bascarsija used to be a market where people came down
from the hills above the city to sell, trade, or buy, Hadzibajric's was a
place to stop by for a quick bite. To this day, people from the
neighboring stores who have been selling tourist trinkets drop in for a
meal.
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| Aščinica Hadžibajric's |
Everyone-
"from the poor to the bosses," she says-is equal before a shallow
stainless- steel bowl in which the restaurant serves its inexpensive
fare. (In an ascinica, dishes might be combined, but ev- erything is
served in a single bowl.) The only ones who might expect better
treatment are the regulars, who by all accounts make up the majority of
patrons.
All the dishes are prepared very
early in the morning, and Hadzibairic's stays open until all the fare is
sold, usually by the late afternoon. In the old days, everything was
cooked on a wood-burning stove, which meant that the fire had to be kept
going overnight. Even if a gas stove does the job to- day, the fire is
still burning. I suggest every tourist should visit this place in the
middle of Bascarsija and surrely you won't leave disapointed.
Content
and services:
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Aščinica
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Kitchen/Food:
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Cooked food dishes ( Old Bosnian Dishes)
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Drinks:
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Non
Alcoholic drinks
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Adress/Location:
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Veliki Čurčiluk 59
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Working
time:
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07:00 - 18:00
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