Several years ago, before my wedding, I was reflecting on what it means to be married and to become a family unit. I thought about family traditions - what my husband and I would each weave in from our upbringings, and what new traditions we would create together. It got me thinking about the significant role that food plays in my family, particularly at all our major events. I quickly realized that this was not unique to just our family.
Growing up as a Serbian in Canada, my parents fed me homemade food from back home and at the time, I didn't even realize how special it was that my parents brought these recipes with them from across an ocean. I loved eating djuveć, sarma, podvarak, and ćevapi (drooling...). Now that I'm away from home, I'm trying to figure out how to perfect these recipes without exact measurements. When I call, the instructions include "a handful of this" or a "pinch of that" and mine sadly never turn out as well.
The desire to stay connected with my family, culture, and my upbringing through food is what inspired me to create HOMEMADE, a food documentary web series about home cooks and their treasured family recipes. I figured if we had interesting stories and traditions associated with our food, others must as well. I don't see much, if any, Serbian food in North American food media. There are many cultures that are not represented, or are represented by a select few. I wanted to shine a spotlight on the stories we don't often get to hear.
HOMEMADE Episode 1 is Dolma by Yasemin Kamci. The dish is from the Turkish side of Cyprus. Fun fact, we make our own version of dolma in Serbia known as sarmice! If you want to get Yasemin's family recipe and hear about her family's stories and traditions, Episode 1 is now having its world premiere as Semi Finalists at Web Series Festival Global! The episode is embedded below and you can also watch on their website. Our episode is the first one on the page right now.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and sharing more episodes.
-Ivana
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