Sunraysia’s cultural diversity transpires in the food locals put on the table every day. Jozica Gerden shares her family history and her passion for food with Marina Hacquin. Pictures: Louise Barker.
For Jozica Gerden’s family in Slovenia, there was no such thing as a weekly trip to the supermarket.
All the food the family-of-ten – Gerden’s parents and eight siblings – cooked, including chicken, came from the small family farm.
“My parents grew everything except sugar and salt, but we had honey, and Slovenia has wonderful salt fields on the Adriatic coast,” Jozica says.
Food prep for such a large family wasn’t easy with everybody required to pitch in whenever Jozica’s mother, the “cook-in-chief,” would ask for help.
“We used to make bread at home, once a week we would make about seven round loaves of bread,” Jozica says.
“Mum straight away put me to the bread table and when I was a teenager I had to start making the pastry.
“Just by doing everything with my parents – starting with making dishes – that’s how I learnt.”
Moving to Australia 50 years ago was a “big shock”, to Jozica’s own admission, with food tasting very differently from the Slovenian produce.
“One day, I was cooking some dumplings and they kept growing and growing,” she says.
“I told my neighbours who explained I had used self-raising flour, which I had no idea existed.”
In Mildura, Jozica has set up a small vegetable garden, but the region’s hot temperatures make it difficult to maintain.
Her house and backyard are filled with Slovenian items – a Linder tree, a cherry tree, grapevines that have been carted from Slovenia.
Popular Slovenian dishes, such as sauerkraut and polenta still make up a large part of Jozica’s cooking – and so does potica, the most common type of pastry a nut roll wrapped around a variety of fillings (walnuts, hazelnuts, or raisins).
“Potica, a yeast-dough cake with a variety of filling options, is the most typical Slovenian dessert, and a delicious one,” she says.
