Rasima

Rasima Born in Prijedor (Stari Majdan) 1934. Rasima’s daughter, Nasiha, was also present. Interview by Dženita.

DL: Let’s turn to grandmother, then.

Nasiha: Yeah.

DL: Grandma, we’ll interview you a little bit. This thing for Ana. I’ll go sit by you.

Rasima: What would you like me to tell you about?

DL: Well, tell us about coffee.

Rasima: About coffee?

DL: About coffee. You know how it is with us in Bosnia, whatever happens, happens with coffee. We make it happen somehow, we come over for coffee, then we go to someone’s place for coffee, and everything is about coffee.

Rasima: Yes, but…

DL: And then Ana figured it our and she wants to talk to as many Bosnians as possible about coffee. About our experience with coffee.

Rasima: sShe means, how I started to drink coffee?

DL: Yes, how did you start drinking coffee?

Rasima: We didn’t drink coffee, us girls. Very seldom. That… Only the elders drank coffee.

Nasiha: Older people, mother.

Rasima: And when you get married, the mother-in-law never pours coffee for the bride. Never. It was considered shameful for the bride to drink coffee with them, you know? And I was 18 when I got married. I didn’t know how to make either lemonade or cffee, right? My mom was still young and healthy, and anyway, what would we youngsters do? Her guests come over, and she prepares everything so us girls just go outside, go somewhere, um… And, you see, I don’t know, I don’t remember ever sitting down and having coffee with my father and mother.

DL: Not even later, when you got married?

Rasima: Aha. That wasn’t so prevalent where we lived. Smokers, yes, they liked coffee. But where we lived it wasn’t, I don’t know… I wouldn’t drink coffee even when I’d make children’s breakfast in the morning, for instance. Whatever beverage I’d make for the children, I’d have that same drink, either tea, or, I don’t know, we were brewing all kinds of beverages back then, out of cereal, I don’t know… But this, this real coffee of ours, that was, uh, before the war back then, all the women would count those..

DL: Beans.

Rasima: …how many coffee beans they’ll grind, grind with those grinders. Um, coffee was expensive, it wasn’t such a common beverage.

DL: And which one, how did you brew the cereal, was it barley?

Nasiha: There’s, when I was in Sanski Most last year, my sister found some in the store, or they had some, I don’t know, I can’t remember, she just told me that when she was sown there that she found a cereal beverage, like those we used to have, I think she told me it was a mix of grains, and now I crave it, I wish I could find it somewhere, and drink some. They say it’s so nice.

DL: I remember, I remember that during wartime, because we were in Sarajevo, that barley…

Rasima: Yes.

DL: They brewed barely. And I know that my mom and dad, ugh, um, they rolled their eyes. But they drank that barley beverage because there was no coffee.

Rasima: We rarely had it.

Nasiha: Mother, when did you first start drinking coffee, do you remember exactly?

Rasima: Well, I don’t even remember with… With my mother-in-law, maybe, sometimes with my sister-in-law. She was older than me and she’d call me, “Come have some coffee.” But for me, that coffee was never any...

DL: Pleasure.

Rasima: I never, you know, women would say, if she doesn’t have real coffee in the morning, she’d get a headache. I never would. But, later when I started having high blood pressure, then I would never drink coffee. I don’t drink it nowadays either.

DL: So basically you never drank coffee that much?

Rasima: Excuse me?

DL: You never drank coffee that much? Just every once in a while?

Rasima: Aha. Because it would get my blood pressure up.

DL: Of course.

Rasima: And so…

DL: And when you recall, like, um, those gatherings, your parents, their guests, when they visit at your house, when, would coffee be serves then, or, or something else? Like, let’s say, like now, when we come over, for instance Ana and I same over so, like, it’s normal that coffee… Was it like that, before, in your day, I mean, did your parents, at your parents’ home, was it like that, guests come over, and then… Or was it only for the men, or like this, regular?

Rasima: It was for the women, and for the men. It’s just that youngsters, young people didn’t drink coffee, young men or young women.

DL: You know what just occurred to me? You know when they say, I mean, um, like wedding day coffee? What’s the difference?

Nasiha: Well, we don’t know, we didn’t exactly, mom, do you know what’s wedding day coffee like? That wasn’t the custom, it depends on where you were, where you lived, you know, in which parts of the country. For example, my mother’s region, those folks were very, how can I put it, people on… It was a small town named Stari Majdan, but all-Muslim populated. But that used to be an extremely wealthy town, all-Muslim populated, so, um, mainly those people who had children and families, they drank coffee. However, those young people, they didn’t drink coffee. And there was none of those, nothing exactly, those, some of those kinds of wedding day coffee and some special custorms. Their custom was, when a guest comes by, first you ask them if they’d like lemonade, then after the lemonade it’s coffee and something sweet to go with the coffee.

DL: So you would, it was with lemonade?

Rasima: Yes, like, would you like a glass of juice, except there were no juices back then, only lemonade, freshly squeezed lemons, so it’s, um, if someone doesn’t want that, then… And children weren’t offered anything. When children come…

DL: Yeah, well okay, um …

Nasiha: And, like this, afterward mom started to drink coffee with her girl friends, when they came by, and they’d be the only ones drinking coffee, for example, I never drank coffee with my mom. When I was young, then I didn’t remember at all when I even started drinking it, I didn’t… And then, for instance, if someone came by and sat and drank coffee with mom and dad, we never did.

DL: I didn’t know of that custom.

Nasiha: Well, no, it wasn’t…

DL: No, not of…

Nasiha: We didn’t at all, simply, maybe we were just that kind of a family that didn’t drink a lot of coffee.

DL: Of course, maybe.

Nasiha: You know, it depends, now, somewhere where they drank a lot of coffee, they’d always sit down and drink it together.

Rasima: When my children were small, I’d mostly brew them those cereal beverages, and I’d give them milk, a cup each, spread something on a piece of bread or, whatever anyone wanted. Otherwise they didn’t sit down and drink with us and, no, I just prepare it that way, I mean that cup of milk and a piece of bread with some spread on it…

DL: And do you remember how you learned to brew coffee? Like, I mean, you didn’t drink it and, um, you didn’t begin drinking it for a long time, but, I mean, you got married…

Rasima: I didn’t begin drinking it for a long, long time.

DL: You got married, and how did you learn how to brew it, who taught you how to brew coffee?

Rasima: Oh, well, I watched my mom do it, so, I notice, wherever you go, coffee is served, but we don’t drink it. But, there was a place, there was no way the daughter-in-law would drink coffee when she moves in.

DL: Abut did, let’s say, like, you don’t drink coffee as a daughter-in-law, but do you have to prepare the coffee service for the guests?

Rasima: Yes.

DL: As a daughter-n-law, you have to make it?

Rasima: Of course. (chuckles) Right away, the mother-in-law …

DL: …sends you.

Rasima: Aha. I got married, and on the second day of the wedding reception, a lot of folks came. And my in-laws had wealthy relatives, they had two brothers, three brothers, and two sisters. Only one brother got marries, and of all the rest, nobody did. And there was one, beautiful, tall, they called her Hanumica. And they had such a nice life, I told them, and they came to the wedding. And they met me, and I… And I had a sister-in-law (bother-in-law’s wife), older than me, that one from… (laughter) And that one had a brooch, a golden one, I don’t know what you called that, that’s how rich they were, but they didn’t want… Only one brother got married and had two children. And the rest of them grew old and died, and nothing.

Nasiha: They didn’t want to because of the property, right? Because of the wealth, the brothers didn’t want to get married so that the wealth wouldn’t fall apart.

Rasima: Yes.

Nasiha: And the sisters didn’t want to get married either.

Rasima: And so they came, I met them, and that sister-in-law of mine, she’s really the one doing most of the greeting, and, you know. And then, Hanumica goes, “I want the bride to make us lemonade.” Haaa, but I don’t know how to make lemonade at all, I swear to god. Of course not, my mom was young, and when her friends would stop by, we run away, why would we be sitting among women. She was the one, she made the lemonade, coffee, we were…. And I look at her, I’m thinking why me, I can’t make lemonade. And my brother-in-law’s wife, there was a cabinet like that, so, um, she put, something like this, a bunch of those lemons, and a pitcher this big… How do I do this? Because there wasn’t that thing you use…

Nasiha: To squeeze…

Rasima: …You had to use a spoon to get the juice out. I saw… She saw I was blushing, you know, and all of them… I mean, I was young, so… And I start doing it. Aska says, “Here’s a knife, cut the lemon in half.” She whispers to me like that. And I say, (whispers) “I don’t know how.” At that point she goes outside and then back in, “They want you out there to go and dance, I’ll make lemonade.” She was so good, my god. And she really stayed there and made lemonade and I went outside. (Laughter.) I mean, that was…So young, so young. I went back inside again later, and she (Hanumica) says to my sister-in-law, her name was Aska, “Aska, we wanted the bride to make us lemonade, to see what she’s like.” I says, “Some other time.” (Laughter.) But I don’t know how, I think to myself.

DL: Did the same brother-in-law’s wife taught you to brew coffee? Or you…

Rasima: Well, I did see how she did it, she drank coffee, and mother-in-law as well…

Nasiha: How did that go, mother, was it that you bring the water to a boil, then you put some coffee in another vessel and pour hot water over, and they you put it back…

Rasima: Oh yes, yes, a little bit…

Nasiha: Explain it to her, mom, from the beginning, so that she… Water, bring it to a boil…

Rasima: Well, one time, an aunt of my husband’s comes over, she was from the countryside, so that I can take her to, um, to the band where my sister was working. Um, she needed credit or something like that. But I had no coffee. Neither my husband nor I had ever drank coffee, so we had never worries whether or not there’s any coffee in the house… She tells me, “I just,” she says, “had some burek at the train station, I’d only like some coffee.”

Nasiha: Why didn’t you order coffee with your burek at the station?

Laughter

Rasima: She said, like, I don’t need to offer her lunch, just coffee. And I don’t have a single coffee bean anywhere in the house. But across the street I had a friend, Persa. We thought the world of each other. And the aunt relaxed on the couch a bit, and I run across the street. “Persa,” I says’ “give me a spoon of coffee,” I said, “the old lady is here.” She was old, but strict. She says, “Why didn’t you ask her how come she didn’t bring any?”

Laughter.

Rasima: I says…

Nasiha: Yes, it was customary to bring coffee, coffee is brought as a gift everywhere.

DL: Of course. Right.

Rasima: And so Persa quickly gives me some coffee, I immediately grind it, and when I made her a pot, I’m not drinking any, she says, ugh. I was so angry then, I almost didn’t take her to the bank. I made a really nice pot, with foam on the top, and everything, and when she had the first cup, she says, “You made a nice pot, but it didn’t,” she says, “boil twice.”

DL: What does that mean?

Rasima: I didn’t, when I poured hot water over the ground coffee, um, you’re supposed to put it back on the burner a bit, bring the coffee to a boil. She says, “It didn’t boild twice.” What am I supposed… (laughter) I didn’t even have any fucking coffee. And so it…

DL: And do you remember your, like, first coffee pot you used to make coffee? Like, I mean, you only remember that moment you first brewed coffee, and the like, that coffee pot, and the stove?

Rasima: Oh, I wouldn’t say I remember. It was a long time ago.

DL: It was a long time ago.

Rasima. Yes. Maybe, maybe only when I had my third child, and my mom and my aunt came over, those ladies were a bit older. And I know, I started to brew coffee, but I don’t know how much coffee to use. And my mom gets up, I remember that. But…

DL: And did you brew coffee using just one large pot? For instance, in Podgorica, I, I, since we, since my mom and dad are from Podgorica, and the traditions are a bit different. And then, um, it’s always, um, difficult to make coffee, because with one, one pot is brewing, the big one, and then you make coffee for each person in those little individual pots.

Rasima: Aha.

DL: And so if you have a house full of guests, it means, you have to remember, what does this one like, what does that one, everyone wants their coffee differently and then when us children go over, and go, how would you like it, first we count how many there are, then who likes their coffee which way, is it with sugar, without, just a bit, with a lot of sugar, ugh…. But coffee was brewed individually. And everyone, the little one, the little pot, and everyone had a cup of coffee.

Rasima: Aha.

DL: And so, how, did you also make it that was, or did you make one big pot, and then…

Rasima: Well, that happens, it depends. I had a cousin, when you go over to her house, she’d have much smaller-sized fildžans, as we call them. Like this, small cups, and she’d only fill them half-way, and we’d always yell… Um, and my sister would go with me, she’d say, “Liste, where did you find cups this size?” She says, “You can only have one…” Sure, I swear, she pours you coffee twice, and some would have more. And she… we always talked about it, how small her cups are and little coffee she’d pour… We were amazed.

DL: And do you remember when you, for instance, would buy coffee cups, you know when you go shopping for coffee cups, like, for the house, how did you pick those cups? How did you decide on the size?

Rasima: Well, there were some smaller ones, and some bigger ones. But not as big as these…

DL: Yeah, not these…

Rasima: Yes. This size wasn’t available.

Nasiha: And you liked, which kind, which shape? You didn’t like them too shallow? And about medium-sized, right, you didn’t like those that were too small or those too big ones, but…

Rasima: Yes, like that.

DL: And did you pick these kinds of cups, or did you, um, those with a little hook, what was the word?

Rasima: Well, I did… There was none.

DL: There was none of that. Only fildžans. And then later on when it was a bit… But that was after the war, the one before.

Rasima: Second, second world war.

Nasiha: But, mother, explain it to her that it wasn’t customary in our region to use those little individual pots, but the single big one, we called it ibrik, you brew a big ibrik full of coffee and pour into cups.

Rasima: Pour into cups from that thing, and milk from the other…

DL: And do you remember the whole ritual? You said at the beginning that, um, that it was mainly older folks and men who drank coffee. Do you make one pot of coffee and then they are sitting and sipping like that, for an hour, two, and talking? Do you remember that? Can you bring it to life for us?

Rasima: You call it ćejf, znaš. Like, pleasure. Some drink their coffee for an hour, two, sitting, and a little, and especially if they’re smoking… Um… And so, if they have time, they’re sitting, sitting over that coffee, sip a little bit… And later, later those cups appeared for… Few people had that back then.

DL: And then that, that single little cup, then they sit, and sip one drop, and light a cigarette, and talk, about everything, and with that one little, that little cup, several topics.

Rasima: Of course. That was a custom. But right before that war… That town where I was born, there was a mine nearby. They’d mine for ore, they’d mine for, those… Everyone worked at the mine, you know, after the war. But they burned everything down, even the dingiest buildings, some army, I don’t know. We stayed, my mom put two wool mattresses out, that’s what we slept on, um, there were no beds like this. And we go out into the garden, we have a big garden by our house. We were… There were five of us children, my youngest sister wasn’t even born yet. And we’re crying, noisy, they burned all the houses down. And all the houses were large. We had seven rooms. But it was all wood construction. There were no roofs like today’s ones. And when they burned it all down, and all the houses were close to one another, you couldn’t see, and it was in the middle of the day. Then they let the animals out, whoever had some, so they’re roaring, the children are crying, oh my god, you can’t even see the sun from all the flames and the smoke. Ha! And that’s how we became poor. And my father was a shopkeeper. He had a hop and a coffee house. And a large beehive, so he sold honey in his shop. And we were like that, it got dark, and we’re outside on those mattresses, and mom was with us, and dad fled to his people. And one soldier comes over to my mom, says, “Where’s your husband?” And she says, “I don’t know. He left like all the men, how would I know.” “He shouldn’t have,” he says, “Nothing would have gotten burned down.” Had he stayed, he meant. But there’s no way, they would have maybe killed him. And then…

Adela Sajdel Cerić: And you started talking about the mine and coffee. You have to talk about coffee.

Rasima: Well, we talked about it just now.

DL: And tell me, you said now that, um, that your dad, father had a coffee house?

Rasima: Yes!

DL: And how was that when men would come, um, how was that, for example after the service t the mosque, or after work, they gather at the coffee house and sip coffee?

Rasima: Of course. Mainly older men, because the younger men had to work in the mines and would return tired. But I spent very little time, I would stop by on my way to school. Our father would… And then off to school and…

DL: And what was that like, were there chairs and tables? Was it round? I mean, that’s how I imagine, because, from the books, was it round, so they can sit on those stools, on sofas, and sip their coffee?

Nasiha: Do you, mom, remember, when you’d visit the shop, that coffee house, what did it look like inside?

Rasima: Well, I think there were, see, I remember, those benches like this.

DL: Aha.

Rasima: Yes, it wasn’t like this.

Nasiha: And who brewed coffee…?

Rasima: Well, a man did.

Nasiha: A man, I see. And women didn’t frequent the coffee house?

Rasima: No chance.

Nasiha: Men, only, and older men to boot, right?

Rasima: Older, older…

Nasiha: And what was the coffee service like, in those little pots?

Rasima: Yep.

DL: So it was traditional?

Rasima: At the coffee house, they had those small trays, a tray with a pot and a cup.

[interview ends abruptly as Rasima tires]