Due to the coronavirus situation, many activities marking the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide have been cancelled this year. Many have decided to find other ways to condemn the genocide. Alma Aganović, president of the West Midlands Remembering Srebrenica committee, with the help of other members of the same committee, organized an online event on Facebook called “Let’s cook Bosnian food!”.
In cooperation with the BH UK Network, they invited people not only from the West Midlands region, but also from beyond, to prepare traditional Bosnian dishes to send a message of peace, to support all survivors and families of innocently killed Bosniaks. Interestingly, even members of the board, who are not originally from Bosnia, accepted the challenge and made Bosnian specialties for the first time.
Phil Ginnings, sought out a variety of Bosnian recipes and worked tirelessly to cook and present the finished food to the group. He was joined by Anousheh Haghadi and Amy Drake making zeljanica, Richard Burden cooking pepper stuffing, Lizzie Norman making krempita and many others. Aida Salkić- Haughton from YMCA North Staffordshire organised for the youth from the campus to make Bosnian lokum. Our food spread its aroma in various parts of England; čupavci were made in Newcastle, uštipci in Leicester, Burek in London etc…
“Culinary tradition plays an important role in the cultural identification of the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I am glad to see that a large number of Bosnians and Herzegovinians and citizens of Great Britain responded and supported such an event. Thank you to everyone who decided to learn more about Bosnia and Herzegovina, about the genocide that took place, about the peoples of our climate and our cuisine. We should not forget about the important things that make our country different and interesting for tourists . The ambition of all of us should be to make our present and future, preparing traditional dishes, be filled with the smell and taste of another, maybe even nicer time,” said Alma Aganović.
