Sarma

The story

In Serbian tradition, sarma has two faces: a festive version with meat for Christmas and slava, and a meatless Lenten version—made with rice, mushrooms, and vegetables—for the days of strict fasting that lead up to Orthodox Christmas, celebrated by the Julian calendar on January 7. The cabbage for wrapping is prepared months in advance, whole heads salted down in large barrels, and that fermented cabbage is the foundation without which sarma would not exist. The ratio of meat to rice, the size of the rolls, and the choice of additional meat (pork, beef, or smoked sausage) differ from house to house, and many Serbian grandmothers claim they can tell “whose” sarma they are eating just by the way the leaves are wrapped. Sarma cooks slowly, for hours, and is always made ahead, because by universally accepted rule it is at its best on the second or third day. For Serbian families in the diaspora, these cabbage rolls are the dish that “smells like Christmas” before it ever reaches the table—a feeling Croatian families share with their own version of the same dish.