September 13, 2011
Dubrovnic, Croatia

Breakfast is something they really don’t understand here.  I’m not talking a big American breakfast; I’d settle gladly for a smallish “continental” breakfast.  The hotel in Milan had coffee, juice, croissants (which seem to always in this area of the world unavoidably have “marmelad” baked into them), fresh rolls, salami, and cheese.  I have no problem with that.  Here you can pay $3 for some bread and butter, and that is at places specifically catering to tourists.  I’m not sure the locals eat breakfast at all.

Coffee is another issue.  I like good black coffee.  I like it moderately strong.  I don’t care for espresso, and cappuccino does little for me.  The Italians, without particularly approving, would happily serve you a cup of “Americano,” which is more or less a cup of good strong black coffee.  This concept doesn’t seem to exist here in Croatia.

The first morning I wandered around at about 8 a.m. (very early by local standards), and finally found a place where I could get a croissant (with marmalade in it, of course) and asked for coffee.  It was a small place with a coffee machine.  The proprietor handed me a paper cup half-full of what appeared to be espresso.  I asked him to top it off with hot water, which really confused him, but he complied.  A couple cups of this barely satisfied, but it wasn’t overly expensive, so I repeated the same thing on day two.  I was surprised he remembered me and automatically topped of my coffee with hot water.

On morning #3 I wanted some real coffee, dammit, so I stopped by a shop where I had seen the baker dropping off fresh goods the previous day and bought a couple of mysterious-looking but hopefully sweet and breakfast-worthy treats and headed for an open air cafe near the farmer’s market to find some coffee, read my book, and enjoy the watching of commerce in produce.

A surly woman with an attitude like a northern German approached and said nothing, so I asked for coffee.   She said, “Espresso, cappuccino, or someotherthing?”  Not recognizing the third thing and not liking espresso, I ordered cappuccino.  She turned to leave and I said wait, no milk!  This annoyed her and she turned to stare at me and, clearly displeased at my indiscretion, firmly asked “Espresso or cappuccino?”  I guess she figured three choices were too much for me, so narrowed it to two.  Realizing I had lost the battle, I agreed to the cappuccino.

From that point forward I made sure to be as pleasant and friendly as I could, as it seemed to annoy her.  After one cup I told her how good it was and had another.  I continued reading my book, noshing on my baked goods secreted in my book pack, then made a point of having a third.  She grew more surly by the cup.  The only thing that pleased her was when I finally paid and left.

A recurrent mini-theme in Kaplan’s Balkan Ghosts has to do with coffee. While everyone in the Balkans seems to hate each other (Catholic, Orthodox, Jew, Muslim), nobody is hated more here than the Turks.  Actually the Ottomans, but history here lives in the present, so that’s an insignificant distinction.  At the same time, everywhere Kaplan traveled they served Turkish coffee, all the while calling it (depending in location) Croatian coffee, or Albanian coffee, or Serbian coffee, or Rumanian coffee.

I have yet to find a regular cup of coffee in this county.  Maybe tomorrow in Montenegro.  Say, maybe they understand breakfast, there.