For centuries our country was a target of conquerors, often under occupation of foreign rulers and cultures while trade caravans also passed through these crossroads, so their legacy is an unusual mixture of Ancient Greek, Byzantine, Oriental, Austro-Hungarian, French and Russian gastronomic heritage.

According to scarce but still sufficient data available for our present-day analysis, we can claim with high confidence that the Serbian cuisine has been reaching into the distant past. Therefore we are now able to envision the history of Serbian gastronomy as a continuous process that finally resulted in the Serbian national cuisine.

This may be the leading cause of so many head-scratchers, among the professionals as well as among citizens and guest tourists, about the real nature of the Serbian cuisine: is it what is prepared in homes on daily basis, or what is written in recipes and printed in various books? Once defined, it becomes the foundation of restaurant and tourist offer of Serbia, a special promotable brand.

The author has put in a lot of effort to present the entire results of his research in form of a book. The awareness of scarcity of written material on diet of Serbian people through history is an additional reason to approach this subject gradually and in great detail.

The goal of the author is not just to present the dishes made by our ancestors in order to satisfy our curiosity and to finally have them all written and listed in one place, but also to reintroduce as many of them as possible into the everyday diet and restaurant and hotel offer. I hope that after so many years some of these special delicacies will again spread their aromas through our kitchens.

Uroš Urošević, master chef, the manager for relations with HoReCa customers, METRO Cash & Carry