šuti

Šuti means "shut up" in Croatian and I heard it a lot on Christmas day. Uncle Ivan, seventy-something and rather tipsy, was explaining in detail how to tell if your fish monger is ripping you off (there's a complicated equation with the price of a fillet versus the price of a whole fish). His son, Stefan, bounded upstairs with a present: "Šuti!" he shoved the present into Ivan's lap, "Open this, old man!".

In between talking about fish prices, Dalmatia and the act of being Dalmatian (if you get a bunch of elder Dalmatians together, I swear, its all they talk about) I ate a pile of kroštule, otherwise known as hrvoštule. They're little pastry bows, deep fried until just golden and dusted with icing sugar. My Aunty Marlene is the only person in our family who makes them and has promised to teach me the recipe before she dies. A cousin said I'll only receive it on Marlene's death-bed because "Marlene wants to be the only person alive who knows the recipe", which I think is true! There are recipes here and here but I doubt they are anywhere near as good as the one locked away in Aunty Marlene's head.