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G A S T R O N O M I C K V A R N E R
26
The history of Primorje and Gorski Kotar, as
well as that of the rest of Croatia, was meager
regarding cakes! The few master pastry chefs
were highly esteemed. During the Gothic,
baroque and Renaissance periods, nobility
celebrated their
maîtremaîtres de plaisir
, masters
of pleasure and entertainment, and organized
banquets at which they built triumphal arches,
coliseums, pyramids and castles from sugar.
Creating miracles from sugar and cake provided
them with an outlet for
creativity and imagination, such as the
Frangipan tortes, which are perhaps named for
the Croatian noble family of Frankopan.
The Jesuit Juraj Habdelić thundered
in his sermons against Venetian
pastries and gluttons who spent
all their wealth pandering to
the appetites of the stomach,
in order to gain prestige, as
if the majority of the most
delicious, seductive desserts
had not arrived from the
inspired monastery kitchens
and from missionary travels.
Today, the best cake in the
Priomorje-Gorski Kotar
region is considered to be the
Rab cake, still prepared by the
local nuns according to a secret
recipe.
SWEET SECRETS