This is the third in a series about “The Serbian Cooking Show” initiated in the May/June 2010 issue of Serb World USA. This installment was published in the September/October 2010 issue and is posted here with permission from Serb World USA.
Note: “Baba” in Serbian translates to “Grandmother”, and “Djedo” is “Grandfather”
For those not familiar with the delightful pastries named priganice, they were described at the Junior Potluckers’ “Serbian Cooking Show” as: “Deep-fried dessert from another era when our Babas and Moms had time to have them rise on the stove and fry them up for visitors.”
At the cooking show, making priganice was demonstrated by sisters Veronica and Georgia Polich. Theirs was the third and final demonstration, and as a special treat, the sisters brought their heirloom “priganice pot,” now serving its third generation.
True to the Potluckers’ description, the Polich sisters’ recipe is from another era. They learned to make priganice from their mother, Jovanka “Jean” Polich, who learned it from her mother, Cvijeta Vukoje.
Veronica is certain that the recipe comes from her babas family because she says of her grandfather, “Djedo hardly knew where the kitchen was, except to eat.” About the recipe, she adds, ”We’re lucky we have it.”
“Priganice!” Just saying the name makes me smile. Appropriately it is Jean (nee Vukoje) Polich’s smile that first comes to mind when she is remembered by her fellow-Potluckers. It is the same warm and welcoming smile that her daughters, Veronica and Georgia, share as, I am told, did Jean’s mother, Cvijeta.
This priganice story begins with the Vukojes, Djuro and Cvijeta, who were born in nearby villages in Hercegovina, he in 1887 and she in 1889. But they met and married in Los Angeles at St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church.
Djuro arrived in the United States in 1906. Cvijeta and her brother, Lazar Kisic, came around 1910. The story is that when Cvijeta arrived at Ellis Island, she was asked what her name meant. The interpreter said, “Flower,” and her name was recorded as ”Flora Kissich.”
Djuro and Cvijeta Vukoje raised six children-George, Stan, Mike, Vlado, Mildred, and Jovanka-in a downtown Los Angeles neighborhood that boasted many Serbian families. Among them were Sabovich, Zotovich, and Prnjat. The corner grocery store was owned by Mike Mihich, and in the 1930′s, my grandfather, Alex Radovich, had his butcher shop inside that store. Like the Vukojes, the daughters of some of those families were original Potluckers, and their daughters are now Junior Potluckers.
Cvijeta Vukoje was known for her priganice and would often make them for events at St. Sava’s. The old church, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in October 2010, was new when Cvijeta and her brother first arrived in this country. Many recall priganice piled high like pyramids on platters along the length of the bar in Jedinstvo lodge’s social hall where the celebrations were held.
The Polich sisters smile as they fondly remember Serbian Christmases at their baba and djedo’s home. How excited they would get when the phone rang to inform them that the men, who were going house-to-house observing an old Serbian custom, would be stopping there next! Of course, they were well prepared with plates of pastries-priganice and rostule-and nut roll-povitica-among the many dishes ready to welcome their guests.
Although the tradition of “making the rounds” on Serbian Christmas is no longer practiced in Los Angeles, the Polich sisters-Veronica, Georgia, JoAnn, and Virginia-along with their daughters make those same Christmas treats every year. Only one sister is married to a Serb, but they all share the traditional foods, serving them alongside the newer items added to their annual celebrations by succeeding generations.
Although Veronica and Georgia’s mother was a native Los Angelina, their father, John Polich, was born in Hibbing, Minnesota. In 1935, he came to California to attend Loyola University on an athletic scholarship. While he excelled in both football and ice hockey-his scholarship was for both sports-it was ice hockey that would change his life.
While we in Los Angeles especially enjoy football and all sports that take place outdoors, in the 1930′s Loyola’s ice hockey games were sold out, especially when they played against the University of Southern California (USC). As fate would have it, Jean Vukoje attended one of those games.
She was there with her girlfriend who was dating one of the Loyola players. Because the girls were still in high school, the only way her friend was allowed to attend was if Jean accompanied her.
After one of the games, John Polich asked his friend to introduce him to Jean. In May of 1940, Jean Vukoje and John Polich were married.
Also in 1940, the outstanding young athlete from Hibbing was named to the U.S.A. Winter Olympic Ice Hockey Team. Those games were to be held in Sapporo, Japan, but sadly, the Olympics were canceled that year due to the outbreak of World War II in Europe.
As a result, John Polich, the recent college graduate, decided to give up his amateur status. He chose hockey over football although he had received many offers to play professional football. John went to play professional ice hockey for the New York Rangers.
Two years later, when John and Jean were starting a family, Jean urged him to move back to Southern California where she wanted to raise their children close to her family. John liked the idea and admitted he, too, missed the California sunshine.
They returned to Los Angeles in 1942 when he was offered the position of player-coach by the Los Angeles Monarchs, a team named for his high school team. John Polich remained with the Monarchs for six seasons.
After leaving professional hockey, John went on to a distinguished career of over 30 years as sports director for the Los Angeles television station KTLA. On New Year’s Day in 1947, he was the director of the first ever live telecast of the Tournament of Roses Parade.
When the young Poliches bought their first home in Los Angeles, John built a “Sports Room” at the back of the property. It became home to John’s many athletic trophies and memorabilia-and the site of many hockey parties.
Veronica and JoAnn remember their Uncle George, one of Jean’s brothers, as their father’s biggest fan. He was a frequent visitor to the “Sports Room.”
Soon after starting his career at KTLA, John built a much larger “Sports Room” -a cabin in Big Bear, California. In the community about 100 miles east of Los Angeles, the Poliches built a mountain retreat in this area known for skiing in the winter and for fishing and hiking the rest of the year.
All of John Polich’s sports-related items were moved up to Big Bear. The cabin was enjoyed by the whole family: baba, djedo, aunts, uncles, and cousins included. The girls remember their dad roasting a whole lamb on a spit outside the cabin and their djedo turning the handle to keep the lamb moving.
In the mid-1950′s, John and Jean found their dream property in Chatsworth, an area northwest of Los Angeles bordering the Santa Susana Mountains. There they built their ideal home on five acres of rural land: picture old TV Westerns like The Lone Ranger or The Virginian which were both filmed nearby.
In Chatsworth, the girls were all members of the local 4H Club and raised chickens, a goat, and sheep. They even had a horse of their own. In addition, the girls learned many traditional recipes from their mother and grandmother. They all loved visiting Baba and Djedo at their house.
Georgia remembers, “Baba was in the kitchen, ALWAYS at the stove cooking. I think my love for cooking came from my mother and baba. Of course we heard many ways to say the names of different foods and how to spell things. ‘Is it povitica or potica?’ I would ask.”
They were mesmerized watching Baba make polenta, the Serbian favorite palenta also called kacamak; with cheese. She served it to their four uncles and Djedo, and although they never thought it looked like enough food, it fed everyone.
“We learned a lot by just watching our baba cook. I never could understand why only the men sat down at the table and Baba and Mom served,” Veronica said recently.
Their mother, Jean Polich, was an original member of the Potluckers, the social club started by Andja “Angie” Polich in 1955. Naturally, I asked Veronica and Georgia the obvious question – “Was your father related in any way to Angie’s husband, Todor Polich?”
“No,” they said. “Our dad was Croatian! Mom and Angie were good friends and ‘sisters’ only as Potluckers.”
Veronica told the story of her wedding. She married Rod in 1965. He wanted the ceremony to be held at Christ the Savior Serbian Orthodox Church in Arcadia. Because Jean Polich knew few people there, she was in a bit of a panic. Angie Polich stepped in and recruited fellow- Potlucker Marie Dragovich and her sisters, Olga and Snookie Milosevich, to prepare all the food and decorations. The wedding was beautiful according to Rod and Veronica, and Todor Polich served as the master of ceremonies or stari svat at the reception.
John Polich and Todor Polich looked very much like one another according to Veronica. One day when her father was returning to the TV station, a coworker said, “John, your father is here to see you.”
John was taken by great surprise: his father had passed away many years earlier. He then saw Todor Polich. As they retold that story time and time again through their many years of friendship, they would each smile. So, the true answer to my query, I believe, is they were not related, they were family.
By 1969, the girls were each at a point in their lives when the mother-daughter relationship begins to change. Veronica and JoAnn were married. Each had two young children. Georgia was just finishing college while Virginia was just about to begin. They were developing a friendship with their mother in addition to being her daughters.
That year tragedy struck when Jean Polich and her daughters Georgia and Virginia were in a tragic car accident. Jean did not survive. The family was devastated.
One year later, Georgia and Virginia were living with their father in Chatsworth. Georgia was still recovering from the physical injuries she sustained in the accident, and they were all yet struggling to help each other through their grief.
That’s when a fire-the type that becomes national news-swept through Chatsworth. The girls had just enough time to set the horse free before fleeing just to stay ahead of the flames.
In the end, the fire had claimed 135,000 acres and 226 structures. The home that John and Jean had built was engulfed in flames before the girls reached the end of the driveway. All the treasured mementos of a full and rich life were gone.
In the rubble that was once such a joyful and loving home, Georgia made one last attempt to recover something-anything-of their mother’s. On her hands and knees and with one leg still bad from the car accident, she combed through the ashes.
To her amazement, something caught on the tool she was using: her mother’s wedding ring. It was the first time in over a year that Georgia smiled through her tears.
In trying to cope with such losses, the family became closer than ever. John Polich would push and encourage his daughters to keep moving forward, and it brought him comfort to know they were following the path on which he and Jean had placed them.
Georgia said her father’s favorite line was, “Today is your best day.” She added, “My mom imparted (a message) to me in a birthday card four days before she passed. ‘Live each day to its fullest’ is a quote that has been remembered and lived in my family. The message is on my kitchen wall, and each of my children memorized the verse for school projects.”
In the days after the accident and the fire, the four grandchildren brought everyone a sense of joy and hope that life would go on. The girls, encouraged by daily phone calls and frequent visits to Baba, would cook all the family’s favorite dishes. The familiar tastes and repetitive tasks in the kitchen brought comfort and, in time, even smiles.
Years earlier Baba Cvijeta had given Jean her favorite cast iron pot, the one she used for deep frying-and making priganice. It became Jean’s favorite pot. Soon after Veronica married, Jean gave that favorite pot to her, and during the days of recovery, making priganice in the heirloom pot became much more than preparing treats for a special occasion. The pastries truly brought comfort-and were always made in the “priganice pot.”
That very same priganice pot was brought to the Junior Potluckers “Serbian Cooking Show” by Veronica and Georgia. They both smiled while telling the history of that pot, a story now shared with all the Junior Potluckers, making all of us smile.
Their baba, Cvijeta Vukoje, enjoyed giving her recipes to all who asked. Her granddaughters follow the same philosophy, adding, “Sharing recipes is important. It keeps us in touch with our roots.”
Today, when they bring priganice to a Serbian event, someone invariably asks where the recipe came from. ‘They taste just like I remember,” they’ll add. “Of course they do,” smile the sisters in reply, “because Baba was a good friend of (fill in the blank with someone’s grandmother, mother, or aunt), and she taught her how to make them.”
Forty years have passed since the accident took their mother’s life. The warm and welcoming smiles that characterized their mother and grandmother returned to Veronica and Georgia’s faces long ago. Those smiles radiate from deep within and embrace you like a warm hug.
Maybe it’s because they survived great tragedies as young women, and then again, maybe it is their nature, but the Polich sisters seem to truly appreciate life. They cherish the everyday routines, remembering “Today is your best day” as their father would say and “Live each day to its fullest” as their mother wrote in that last birthday card.
Georgia and Veronica live in the Los Angeles area and are both active members of the Junior Potluckers. Their sisters JoAnn and Virginia live in Northern California.
Despite the miles between them, the whole family – which now numbers nine of the sisters’ children plus spouses and seventeen grandchildren – stays in close contact. “Another cook in the making,” laughs Georgia, thinking about her new granddaughter who was born in August 2010.
John Polich passed away in 2001, but his family continues to share the cabin in Big Bear that he and Jean built in the late 1940′s. It has become a bit of a museum to their father’s career: the hockey sticks, trophies, and photographs kept at the cabin were safe and far from the devastating Chatsworth fire of 1970.
John’s grandchildren and great grandchildren called him “Poppo” and associated him with butterflies due to the way he would “flutter like a butterfly” from one child to the next, always giving them love and encouragement. The butterfly image was reinforced through the Monarch hockey memorabilia kept at the cabin, and to this day, they all-including those born after John Polich passed away-point to a butterfly and call out, “Poppo! Poppo is here with us.”
“We were so blessed having had the enrichment of our Yugoslavian culture as our roots,” Georgia explained. “We have continued to raise our children with that upbringing and cultural pride.”
“My children love to make Yugoslavian dishes with me,” she said, “especially during the holidays. My mom was so patient in allowing me in the kitchen when she was making things. I’m lucky I had her to show me the way!”
Veronica added-in reference to the Junior Potluckers, but applicable to her sisters as well- “We’re lucky we have each other to sustain and support our Yugoslav heritage”
