The adages of old Serbian wives

An Old Wives' tale, at least in English, refers to one of the vast number of home truths that people tend to believe regardless of any hard evidence. Anyone who spends any time with their grandparents invariably gets a few of these thrown at them. Wikipedia names several classics: staying out in the cold causes pneumonia, chocolate causes acne, masturbation causes blindness, etc. In Serbia there are a good number of these, and for the benefit of Westerners new to the country, here are some of them, mostly suggested by a recent visit from a Serbian of advancing years:

1. Anything that is produced by hand by somebody you know is always necessarily better than anything that is bought in a shop.

This applies to wine, sausage, cheese, bread, chickens, fish, furniture, clothing, and frankly just about anything. The adage expresses itself by the need to bring said items, often illegally across borders, in order to save poor relatives stuck (say) in Germany where sausages are terrible (here is one of our sausages, made in the garage by our friend Milo) or to France where wine only ever comes from the shop and isn't provided in old, plastic water-bottles, as is the natural way for it to be served. How many times have I eyed with some longing the ubiquitous gift bottles of good wine from a shop (e.g. Vranac), only to then be offered home made wine of questionable vintage, colour and taste. I actually wonder if these bottles are ever opened, or if they are just past around in some tradition of re-gifting.

There is, at least in Novi Sad, also a tendency to travel great distances to buy individual items. For instance, a University Professor is a well known supplier of fresh fish, and he lives on the other side of town. When we protested that we could get great fish at the newly opened supermarket, the elders scoffed at us. It isn't fresh, so don't even think about it. The fact that the fish in the supermarket were actually alive in a tank didn't (if you'll excuse the pun) hold water.

2. Any meal that takes less than two grueling hours of toil in the kitchen is no good and not healthy.

We are a busy couple, and fond of quick meals in restaurants, or fast recipes at home for tasty meals. However, every time we try to impose such a recipe on visitors from Serbia, we are questioned about whether one can really eat (say) mushrooms if they haven't been boiled, sauteed, fried, soaked in fat, then baked.

This adage applies not just to meals, but to housework in general. I actually think that a lot of this is to do with a desire to be busy at home. My mother used to tell me that her mother, who was a housewife, would dutifully wash and polish the parquet flooring in a grueling four hour exercise each week, commenting that it was necessary to get rid of the germs. Heaven knows what she would think of our parquet, which I consider to be clean even if it only gets a fast clean once per week, and polishing, well, never. It's a wonder we are still alive.

3. Wet hair, even constituting a single drop of water on the head, will cause immediate life-threatening illness to a person if they set one foot outside, even in a sweltering summer.

I've been told this dozens of times, and the fact that I was a competitive swimmer in Canada for ten years, who twice a day would go out into weather that was as cold as -40 degrees with hair that was, for reasons of haste, almost never fully dry and managed to reach adulthood un-stunted (and in fact taller than almost everybody) is no argument.

I remember, in a mild winter in Novi Sad, after we had exited the swimming pool, something that habit means I can do in less than five minutes, I was sitting waiting for G. and noticed a number of swimmers who sat under the dryers for what I thought was a ridiculous length of time. Men with practically no hair dried their fuzz for upwards of ten minutes. I now understand that this was a habit enforced by constant warnings from aging relatives about the dire consequences of not doing so. There scalp must have been peeling off when they left, but Baka would be happy.

4. Not wearing slippers in the house, will lead to some kind of health catastrophe.

How many times I've been given slippers with a sense of urgency, and asked incredulously, in my own house, by visitors from Serbia (and Croatia to be fair) how I can possibly walk around without slippers on - just in socks or in bare feet! The look is one of horror, as if to say that I'm walking a thin line between life and death. A some time corollary of this is that wearing shoes inside will lead to death for all of those inside the house. You'd think I spent my days walking in nuclear waste.

5. Any minor sniffle must immediately be treated by antibiotics.

Now here is something that I definitely do know something about, as a PhD biologist. And curiously, this is, by definition, a new and not a medieval adage. Of course, most sniffles are caused by viruses, not bacteria, so I always protest, pointing out that not only will the antibiotics be ineffective, but taking them will harm your liver and ultimately increase resistance in your system so that they will fail to be effective against real bacterial infections in the future - the biological equivalent of the boy who cried wolf. But all of this is to no avail. Hands are held up, my tongue is requested to be held, and a general feeling that one shouldn't question the elders about things they know better about hangs in the air until the subject changes. Frankly, from a biological perspective, the sooner prescription drugs are more controlled in Serbia, the better.

And yes, I know this is a bit of a grumpy rant, but one must get the visitor frustrations out somehow, and if you can't rant to your blog, who can you rant to?