Burek: A Culinary Metaphor

186 Pages·2015·12.151 MB·English

by  Jernej Mlekuž

Burek
“As simple as burek” is a popular phrase used by many young people in Slovenia.
B
Jernej Mlekuž maintains that the truth is just the opposite. The burek is a pie made
of pastry dough filled with various fillings that is well-known in the Balkans, and u
also in Turkey and the Near East. Whether on the plate or as a cultural artifact, it r
e
is in fact, not that simple. After a brief stroll through its history, Mlekuž focuses
k
on the present state of the burek, after parasitical ideologies had attached

themselves to it and poisoned its discourses. In Slovenia, the burek has become
a loaded metaphor for the Balkans and for the immigrants from the republics of
the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Without the burek it would
be equally difficult to consider the jargon of Slovenian youth, the imagined world
of Slovenian chauvinism, and the rhetorical arsenal of advertising agents when A Culinary
promoting healthy foods.
A
In this analysis, Mlekuž refers to the burek as the “metaburek.” All at the same

C
time it is greasy, Balkan, Slovenian, not-Slovenian, Yugoslavian, familiar, foreign,
u Metaphor
disturbingly unhealthy, plebeian, junk food, and finally, a cherub (burek spelled l
i
n
backwards is kerub, the Slovenian word for cherub). And this metaburek is never a
a
completely pure, innocent, unconditioned burek. It is much more. r
y

M
e
The book is genuinely innovative in both theme and method of research of contemporary t
a
cultural reality. Today we often speak about interdisciplinarity, but it is still very rare to p
have a multi-perspective approach applied so thoroughly and consistently. Analyzing h
o
patterns and practices, stereotypes about the self and the other, the author is discovering
r
the essence of Slovenian daily culture, values, needs, and hopes as expressed among
different social groups by referring to one and the same artifact: the burek.
Milena Dragićević Šešić, Head of UNESCO Chair
and Professor at Belgrade University of Arts
This is an excellent case-study of a cultural phenomenon of everyday life—a popular
fast-food—which is addressed on both horizontal and vertical level. The author unites
meticulous analysis of data, examples and facts from different levels of Slovenian reality: J
e
from popular culture to consumerism, from advertising to everyday life, from political r
n
discourse to new phrases and jokes, from street cultures to immigrant identities.
e
Mitja Velikonja, Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Ljubljana j
M
l
e
k
About the author u
Jernej Mlekuž is Research Fellow at the Slovenian Migration Institute at the Research ž Jernej
Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Mlekuž
ISBN 978-963-3860-90-8
90000 > Central European University Press
Budapest – New York
Sales and information: [email protected]
Website: http://www.ceupress.com
9 789633 860908 9 0 0 0 0
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Burek
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Burek
A Culinary
Metaphor
Jernej
Mlekuž
Central European University Press
Budapest–New York
burek_book.indd 3 2015-07-21 21:53:28
© 2015 Jernej Mlekuž
Translated from Slovene by Peter Altshul
with support from the Slovenian Book Agency.
Published in 2015 by
Central European University Press
An imprint of the
Central European University Limited Liability Company
Nádor utca 11, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary
Tel: [phone] or 327-3000
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.ceupress.com
224 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019, USA
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the permission of the Publisher.
ISBN 978-963-386-089-2 Cloth
ISBN 978-963-386-090-8 Paperback
Printed in Hungary
Prime Rate Kft., Budapest
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mlekuž, Jernej.
Burek : a culinary metaphor / Jernej Mlekuž.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-9633860908 (hardbound : alk. paper)
1. Discourse analysis--Slovenia. 2. Political culture--Slovenia. 3. Popular culture--
Slovenia. 4. Nationalism--Slovenia. 5. Immigrants--Slovenia--Public opinion. 6. Pies-
-Slovenia. 7. Food--Symbolic aspects--Slovenia. 8. Metaphor--Political aspects--
Slovenia. 9. Slovenia--Politics and government. 10. Slovenia--Social life and
customs. I. Title.
P302.15.S57M54 2015
306.4429184--dc23
2014046043
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Contents
List of Figures vi
Foreburek (I Mean: Foreword) Jože Vogrinc 1
Preburek 5
Towards the Burek 11
The Burek and the Metaburek 11
The Metaburek and Discourse 13
The Metaburek and the (Non-)Discursive 21
The Metaburek and the (Im)Material 26
The Metaburek and Discourse (Part II) 31
The Metaburek and Discourse (Part III) 35
The Metaburek and (Non-)Interpretation 41
The Burek and the Metaburek (Part II) 43
About the Burek 47
The Burek is Great and/or a Nutritious Junk Food:
on the burek and healthy lifestyles 47
Nutritious Junk Food 47
The Burek is Great 68
…Burekwarriors 85
Slovenes into Europe with Bureks and/or the Dictatorship
of the Carniolan Sausage, and most of all a good joke:
on the burek and the national essence 93
The Dictatorship of the Carniolan Sausage 93
Slovenes into Europe with Bureks 126
A Good Laugh 140
Afterburek 155
Burekbibliography 163
Primary Sources 163
Literature 170
Burekindex 174
v
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vi
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List of Figures
Figure 1. The Burek as “ART.”
Figure 2. “I don’t have [enough] for a burek.”
Figure 3. Burek equation.
Figure 4. “The Burek is Great.”
Figure 5. “Burek? Nein danke.”
Figure 6. An Albanian.
Figure 7. “Will trade bureks for a mosque!”
Figure 8. Photo of a burek kiosk beneath the arcade at the Ljubljana marketplace.
Figure 9. The burekstand in a comic strip.
Figure 10. “Immigration Manifesto.”
Figure 11. “Yes to bureks but no to mosques, eh?”
Figure 12. “Stripburek: comics from behind the rusty iron curtain.”
Figure 13. “The Slovenian hen is endangered!”
vii
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Foreburek
(I Mean: Foreword)
It is entirely clear where the greatest difficulty lies in researching the bu-
rek. It is in the gap that separates the inferior status of the research sub-
ject in the eyes of the average academician and the exceptional success
of the burek in the nutritional strategies, the speech and the imagina-
tion of the inhabitants of Slovenia.
This success on its own effectively demands that we entertain the
burek as seriously as we would any weighty subject. But the disparity
between the burek’s practical success and its theoretical obscurity pos-
es two related requirements with regard to researching—and particu-
larly writing about—the burek. The first is the requirement for academ-
ic reflection: one has to consider the heterogeneity of the ontogeny of
the burek as an object and a research topic. The second is the require-
ment that the writing justifies the research approach and that the re-
flection is used to translate the disparity into a focused narrative.
How successful Jernej Mlekuž was at navigating these waters will be
for the readers to decide; it would not be appropriate to act like a tele-
vision anchor and summarize the entire text in a sound bite. But we can
illustrate what it’s all about briefly and simply in a few paragraphs.
The object itself, whether you are speaking of one whose delicious
smell is wafting from your oven at home or one that they are wrapping
all hot and greasy in paper so you can eat it on the run while doing er-
rands in the city, is nothing new. Similar dishes have been prepared in
the Pannonian part of Slovenia for centuries, although they did not call
it a “burek.” But the newcomers who brought the word itself to Slo-
venia, when they began selling bureks in kiosks near railway and bus
1
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