Today I would like to share a famous Croatian cultural dessert: the Licitar!
Licitars (Croatian: licitarska srca) are colorfully decorated biscuits made of sweet honey dough that are part of Croatia’s cultural heritage. They are a traditional symbol of the Croatian capital Zagreb. They are used as an ornamental gift, often given at celebrations of love such as weddings and Valentine’s Day. At Christmas time, the city of Zagreb and the Christmas tree in the main square in particular are festooned with thousands of licitar hearts.
The tradition of making and giving Licitars stretching as far back as the 16th century. Licitar makers, known as Medičari, were highly regarded in society, and their Licitars very much sought after (licitars were more sentimental than giving a bouquet of roses). Even today the tradition is kept alive by a select few who covet the art in family secrecy, and their methods of production have scarcely changed. Licitar bakeries in 7agora claim to have made the pastry using the same recipe for over 400 years! One Licitar still takes over a month to make. Although not a religious symbol, licitars were often bought to take home as a reminder of their long and sometimes arduous journey to Zagorje. Licitars' simple shape and attractive colour and decorations were a keen souvenir to show their families and neighbours when they came back.
Licitars are made using traditional ingredients, methods and devotion. Their ingredients are simple (honey, flour, eggs, water and natural colours) but their preparation is long. The dough matures for a few days, then is shaped and baked and left for two weeks to dry. Colouring is the next step after which they are left to dry again for two weeks. Once dry the licitars are finally decorated and again left to dry for a week.
Traditionally, Licitars are 100% handmade and usually decorated with a swirling outline, small flowers and sometimes a small mirror. Since they are made of honey dough and natural products, they can be edible before certain decorations are done.
In modern times, Licitars are traditional Croatian souvenirs (and can be found in all Croatian airports and in many tourist gift shops), Christmas tree decorations, wedding favours for guests, business gifts, many other ornamental purposes, and is still given as a way of showing your affection to the ones you love.
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Heard the same in Hungary too. I think they took a page from Austria’s public housing book and did something similar with the commie blocs? A lot of those houses were given to the poor from what I heard.
I also want to share a good desert from my culture
You don’t need to ask. Go ahead!
I need to get a picture first and a proper description
Then do it… what’s the point of saying that you’re going to say something when you can just do it?
I can but not now
Then you don’t have to say everything you just said. Just come back later and do it.
Just make a separate thread for it. This thread already went off topic by comment 10.
Yeah and unfortunately some people here still think the Empire was amazing and that, and you can’t critique it at all… that narrative has reduced a bit, in part due to the failures of the empire being required on the school curriculum, but it still persists in places.Carking the 6th wrote:
Among their failure to mediate disputes between the Jews and Arabs was Also the terrible division of India, their treatment of Africans and terrible division of them, then being the cause for the civil war in Myanmar. Among other things. Literally everyone on Earth has a bone to pick with the British and/or French. Literally give me any country and I bet I can name something they caused that negatively effected that country. It’s very funny. But yeah I could rant about the British for a century, history is inane.Brando Dilla wrote:
Those Brits sure screwed things up, didn’t they?If it wasn’t for them, to Israel-Palestine conflict wouldn’t be happening.Carking the 6th wrote:
Yeah. It wasn’t really a concept before this. The country is named after the river Jordan. Historically it was basically just part of the levant with Syria and Palestine (Lebanon was not a concept either) until Britain and France came to prance. We were promised the entire Arabian peninsula along with Iraq and the Levant to betray the Ottomans, and instead got divided up into the borders that caused everything that leads us to today.Brando Dilla wrote:
Wasn’t it called Trans-Jordan before?Carking the 6th wrote:
I knew this question would come up eventually… the old US of A. ‘Murica. Though I am from Jordan.
I do joke about British might and that but tbh what we have done in the past is absolutely horrific unfortunately. Not proud of that
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