Opinion | A Rockville restaurant reintroduces the Balkans to the District -

Mention Bosnia and many Americans remember the brutal ethnic wars that tore apart the country in the 1990s. But just off Rockville Pike an entrepreneur originally from Sarajevo is hoping to alter that association in customers’ minds, one flaky layer of dough at a time.

Bosnia has a population of 3.2 million, with almost as many people living in the diaspora. The largest group of Bosnians outside of Europe now lives in the Midwest. With the wars of the 1990s, however, many also came to the D.C. area. Among them was Edin Saracevic, the co-founder of MezeHub.

(Hector Emanuel For The Washington Post)

Part restaurant, part specialized grocery store, MezeHub’s mission is to reintroduce the Balkans to Washington.

MezeHub prides itself on its burek, a savory stuffed pastry it produces in a kitchen set at the center of the retail space.

Connoisseurs argue over the dish’s origin, which people make it the best — and even which variation of the pie has the right to be called a “burek” in the first place.

“Burek actually originates in Iran,” Saracevic told me. “The Ottoman Empire was an ambassador for burek — they spread it throughout the world.”

But the fact that the dish can be enjoyed across the Balkans is instructive: shared culinary traditions are more prevalent than ancient hatreds.

Jason Rezaian: What are the challenges of being an immigrant restaurant owner?

Edin Saracevic: The beauty of the United States is that it really is a land of opportunity. That means it doesn’t really matter what your last name is. In Europe, if you have a last name that doesn’t fit in, you might have a harder time earning a living.

In America, you have to be determined. You have to know what you are trying to do. All the other things that are obstacles elsewhere — here, you just don’t have them. But you have to put in the work and you have to be patient enough to see the results, tweaking your concepts and your best strategies on a daily basis.

Is there a food from home that you can’t get here?

Two things. First, ajvar, which is something that every household would make — a vegetable spread that, growing up, we loved so much that we would eat an entire jar all at once. And we always had it in limited quantities because it would take hours of hard work to make it.

Then there’s something called suho meso, which is a kind of cured meat — just smoked. Smoked meat is prohibited by the Food and Drug Administration from being imported into the United States. So a guy up in Pennsylvania created a company making suho meso, dry goods — all that stuff. It’s a multimillion dollar business right now. He’s doing really well.

Is there an aroma that takes you back to Bosnia?

Sarajevo is very famous for two products: ćevapćići [grilled meat kebabs] and burek. Their flavor, it’s just unique. The smell is an absolute trigger, no matter if you are full or have just had dinner. When you walk in the old town in Sarajevo, the smell is always there, no matter what time of year it is.

There is this part of town, Baščaršija, which translates to “real market.” It’s easily two or three square kilometers, it’s not just one street or a couple of streets. The moment you cross from the Austro-Hungarian part of the city into this Ottoman part of the city, you are in a universe of smell.

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Do you remember your first burek?

I don’t because burek was always homemade.

The first one I would venture outside for, however — there was a shop near my high school. There was one guy on the corner making bureks. When we had a longer break during the day, we would run there and get a burek as a snack or as lunch. The store is still there.

What are the ingredients you need to make your dish that aren’t readily available here? And are there ingredients that you have discovered here that have changed and reshaped your cooking?

I think one of the most difficult things to replicate is something that’s produced on a small scale — in a household. Kajmak is something that is unique. It’s a cream cheese, and it can be sweet or it can be salty. There are varieties of it that I have never seen outside the Balkans. You skim the cream off boiled milk every half-hour. It’s a meticulous, tedious process. It’s so expensive to make in terms of labor. We source kajmak from North Macedonia.

You always ask yourself, “If we change this original recipe or the traditional approach, are we doing a disservice to the quality of food? Or are we actually enhancing it?” I struggle with that. But the quality of the flour, the [basic] ingredients available here — if you nail down the recipes properly, I think you can produce — not just good versions, but sometimes even better products.

How do these two worlds — your old world and the new world — come together in a dish?

Our pljeskavica — I call it a Balkan burger. It’s a big, massive patty, but properly seasoned — not just beef. We put all different kinds of spices in it. Traditionally, you get pljeskavica with a little bit of onions on the side, in a baked bread we call somun.

But we are making it look more American, more appealing to the American consumer. They want a piece of lettuce inside, a piece of tomato, a pickle — things like that. So we fused both of these approaches — and it’s very popular! It’s blurring boundaries on both ends.

An American comes in and eats a burger, but with a beef patty that tastes unique. And for people from Balkans, they say, “What is this?” But they don’t complain too much.

He was a filmmaker during the Bosnian War and came to America as a refugee. Now, he wants to introduce what he calls “the king of the pie” to the public. (Shih-Wei Chou and Jason Rezaian/The Washington Post)

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Mediterranean restaurants in the D.C. metro area

Source: Yelp

Mediterranean restaurants in the D.C. metro area

Source: Yelp

Mediterranean restaurants in the D.C. metro area

Source: Yelp

MezeHub

11508 Schuylkill Rd. Rockville. (301) 246-0517.

Hours: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday.

Prices: $5 to $17 on the delivery menu.

Post Opinions wants to know: What are the foods and ingredients that take you back to your own childhood and where you grew up? Share your thoughts with us.

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