Breakfast in Margina

In Margina commune, Timiș county, we learn to be more travelers and less tourists. We sit at the table with the hosts here, and with each bite, we discover what cultural diversity is hidden in each dish on the table spread before us.

Swabians, Hungarians, Serbs, Russians, Bulgarians, Ruthenians and Roma have left influences here that can be felt in the rich taste of soups spiced with tarragon, zacusca, paprikash, old cabbage rolls, plescavita and all the other essential delicacies from the table of the inhabitants of this area.

The dishes are fatty, nutritious and tasty, characterized by rich sauces, obtained from heated flour, quenched with bone or vegetable broth and enhanced with cream. Sarmale (cabbage rolls) are different from those made in other areas of the country, being prepared from meat minced with a cleaver and as big as a fist.

The very well-organized tours of the area help you to discover, along with food, the nature and culture of these places.

Embark on guided tours and stop along the way around meals organized in local households. You will learn not only about the clean and tasty products they cook, but also about the generous nature of these people, who "get fat when they see you eat”. 

Here we also find Aunt Emilia Popa, one of the hosts of the Breakfast at the Margina product, who puts traditional dishes on the guests' table and dishes that she continues to keep alive through her involvement.

The liver "stuffing", a recipe with Slovak origins, is one example. Prepared by Aunt Emilia Popa from Coșteiu de Sus for special events or on Sundays when everyone gathers at the table, the recipe comes from a long time ago, from the time when she was little and people had to multiply the food in different ways, to reach to everyone. Carefully preserved, the recipe is still reproduced today for its good taste and nutritious properties.

The "stuffing" is made in the following way: chop a large onion, about the size of a fist, a sauté it in a tablespoon of lard. Not oil, because lard is tastier! Put the onion to cook until it is glassy. Take it back from the heat and then cut a bunch of parsley, a one or two grated chicken liver raw - not cut - and then add salt, pepper and 5-6 eggs, no more. How many eggs, so many spoons of flour! Mix the whole composition and then put the mixture to boil in a non-melting bag. In the past, it was put in cellophane, tied nicely and put in boiling water where it had to be boiled for about 45 minutes. Then, on a flat plate, cut the slices.

This Slovakian recipe that Aunt Emilia remembers from her mother comes from the time when weddings were held at home, not in restaurants, and this was one of the traditional dishes. Because Slovaks put meat twice on the table at weddings or baptisms. You put the soup, the boiled chicken meat, not made with egg, then this liver, with puree and compote. After that, the cabbage rolls, after the cabbage rolls, you put the pork steak with pickles and after all that, you put the cakes.

Some people say that this dish was made to multiply the meat well, because two livers make a plate full of food. But it is still made today at the Sunday meal or for gostii, i.e. special guests. As you are expected to be, your lordships!