In the village where my life began, we didn’t ask, “What do we feel like eating today?”
The garden answered that question for us.
Meals followed the seasons. Not because anyone planned them that way, but because that was simply what the earth was ready to give. When the peas were ready, we ate peas.
When the tomatoes ripened, they appeared in every salad.
When the cucumbers were plentiful, they found their way onto every table.
And when the green beans filled the baskets, there was one dish almost every household made: čušpaj od mahuna.
No one thought of it as a recipe. It was simply summer.
Today, supermarkets have changed all that. We can buy almost anything at any time of the year. Green beans in January, strawberries in December, asparagus whenever we feel like it.
I enjoy that convenience as much as anyone, but I sometimes wonder if we have lost something along the way.
When everything is always available, food quietly loses its sense of arrival.
The first cherries no longer announce that summer has begun.
The first tomatoes no longer feel like an event.
And a bowl of čušpaj od mahuna no longer tells us that July has settled into the village.
This afternoon I made a pot just as I remember it. A little olive oil, onion, paprika, potatoes, carrots, fresh green beans from the garden, and a two spoonsful l of Greek yogurt stirred in at the end.
Nothing complicated, just Just one pot. The kind of meal that fills the kitchen with familiar aromas long before anyone sits down to eat. As children, we never thought of these dishes as seasonal. They were simply what was for lunch. Only years later did I realize that we weren’t just eating vegetables. We were eating the seasons themselves. Nature decided the menu, and every meal reminded us where we were in the year.
Perhaps that is why these simple village dishes still satisfy me in a way that more elaborate meals sometimes do. They carry more than flavor, they carry memory. Every spoonful brings me back to the village where my life began, where the garden quietly taught us patience, gratitude, and the joy of welcoming each season as it arrived.
Some meals belong to a family, some belong to a country, and some belong to a particular time of year.
For me, čušpaj od mahuna will always taste like a Croatian summer.