Mini Romania in Graz

Hello all!

Today I’m writing just a few little thoughts about a quite interesting experience I went through. I discovered the Romanian store in Graz. Although I moved to Hungary for studying, I spent my whole childhood, adolescence and a school year at Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

I wanted to surprise my colleagues at the physiotherapy ambulatory with something they have never tried, and could not find any better idea than buying them traditional Romanian delights. I warmly recommend this store to Romanians in Graz, but also for those who don’t know anything about Romania but are opened to taste others cultures' food.

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The culinary treasure is on Elisabethiner Straße, close to Rosseggerhaus on the line of tram 1, 6, 7. The shop was opened some years ago by a couple from Botoşani, the Moldavian region of Romania. By entering the store I had a nostalgic mood, memories of my childhood came alive, and a big smile appeared on my face while facing the products on the shelves. There were a lot of Romanian beer varieties, good quality wines and not so healthy, but real 100% authentic Romanian juices (Romanian Coke for example). However, I’m more attracted by food, so I spent most of my time analyzing the eatable products.

Smoked meats, traditional Romanian meat products, salami, ham, bacon and raw, fresh meat. The best brands are Salam de Sibiu (Salami from Sibiu city), Salam Săsesc (Saxon Salami), Kaiser afumat (smoked pork ham), Cârnaţi picanţi (spicy sausages), Slănină (Bacon), Ceafă de porc (Porc Chop).

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Serbians, Bosnians, and those from Montenegro (from the Balkans) might know Cevapcici (a kind of raw, spiced sausage which tastes excellent when grilled). Well, Cevapcici has got a Romanian brother called Mici. I found ready to-be-grilled Mici in the store. Awesome with mustard and bread and some sour cabbage!

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Traditional Romanian Brânză de Burduf (Burduf cottage cheese, which is a bit like Slovakian Bryndza), but even smoother and saltier than Telemea de Oaie / de Vacă (cottage cheese speciality from sheep and cow). The store sales both sweet and salty Telemea. The salty one is like the Greek feta cheese, and the sweet one cannot be compared with any other land’s cheese, because it’s an authentic Romanian speciality. Both are perfect with Romanian bacon, onion, tomato and warm bread. Milks and yogurts, Sour creams, Sour milks, and fruit-yogurts are given as well. Romanians love sheep dairy-products. They are very good.

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Next step: conserves. My favourite one is the traditional Romanian Bean conserve with Sausage and the Pate Sibiu. Pate is a product from the liver of the pig, duck, goose, or chicken. It’s kind of a sandwich-cream. In my childhood we ate a lot of bread with pate/pasty and ketchup (in the store you can buy Romanian Tomi Ketchup too).

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Murături, Varză murată, Castraveţi muraţi (Sour Cabbage and Cucumber pickles). These vegetables are held months in vinegar, salt, pennyroyal, peppercorns, dill and horseradish; they are often served for many dishes. They taste very good with meat, with stew, or just on a sandwich instead of fresh vegetables. They have their own character. Of course if I have mentioned these products which require a lot of time and hard-work while they are made, I have to recommend you Bunica (Grandma's) jams as well. Jams are also hard to prepare, but taste very good. There are berries and peach jams.

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Last but not least, the snacks. Romanian children are familiarized with the fact that parents asked them to go to the shop or market hall for buying some egg, oil, bread etc. And everyone who has been raised in Romania knows that whenever he or she was sent to the shop to buy something, in the end they could buy something for him/herself with the money which still remained. I also have to admit that I often bought sweets or biscuits, or any other kind of unhealthy food just to treat myself with something full of flavor enhancers, irresistibly tasty. Children always love to buy stupid little cheap things like snacks. As an adult I don’t consume those unhealthy snacks which make every kid fat, but this time I had to buy some from the Romanian store.

First of all, there's the authentic Romanian Baton de Ciocolată (chocolate bar) which is made of cocoa powder and milk powder after a very exhausting, difficult and long procedure. So it is a truly struggling work, but after it the result speaks for itself. My mom also made many times house-made baton in my childhood, and the whole baking lasted more than half a day, but it was worth it. There are more varieties of baton with white chocolate, migdals, or the simple one. Prepare yourself, for an immense sweetness.

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The following is called Halva. Halva looks like and it is an oriental sweet from India, and it looks like a strange bread or a brick. It's made of sunflower seed butter or nut butters, flour and sugar. With some seeds or dry foods in it, it is a very special dessert.

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The third one is the ROM chocolate. This is the abbreviation of Romania, but it also means rum. It's the country's most authentic sweet. The first bar appeared in 1964 and survived the communism and the revolution. The chocolate represents the tricolor and its wrapping is still the same since the beginnings. Filled with rum it's one of the biggest trademarks of Romania. Nowadays there's raisin, milk chocolate and nut version of it, but the truest remains the simple model with rum.

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Thank you for reading me, Bis später, Dóra

(If you're interested in reading more about my experiences, click here .

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