By Josip Bogovic
It is the belief of all forward-thinking people that hard work and achievements should be celebrated for it is the way to inspire others to express and bring forth their potential. Golden Chef Zlatko Marinovic continues to challenge himself in the art of cooking strongly taking into consideration his environment, the history of Croatian cuisine in general and figuring a way to place an accent/light on both. The book “Croatian Cuisine” starts with the following dedication: “I would like to dedicate this book to all women, mothers and housewives throughout the centuries, who caringly and lovingly nurtured and passed their inherited traditions and culture of Croatian cuisine to their loved ones. I would also like to dedicate this book to all promoters of Croatian cuisine, especially to my esteemed colleagues, the Croatian chefs who are responsible for the growth and protection of our heritage, flavors and the richness of Croatian ingredients and gastronomy.”
It is unmistakable to state that the book Croatian Cuisine (285 pages) is a work of art onto itself. The quality of the publication, its photos of landscapes, historical objects pictured dishes intertwined with a historical perspective of all of the above is simply unmatched. It’s the kind of book that would never leave your library because of its quality and content. The book has a wide vision of past, present and future which makes it an intergenerational work. The vision highlights Croatian culinary history, culture and the environment from which the ingredients are born and brought forth onto our plates thus making the Croatian cuisine unique.
To best appreciate the cookbook, it would be wonderful to meet its creator Zlatko Marinovic, the owner/chef of “Nostromo”, a restaurant located in Split, Croatia. The famed restaurant has been in existence for over 25 years with Zlatko and his wife Nina at the helm. According to wife Nina and the results of Zlatko’s accomplishments “whatever he engages the best of himself will be applied to the task and Zlatko will never surrender until he is satisfied with a desired outcome. The fact that he was a water polo player and deep-sea diver helped built this determination in him.”
Zlatko Marinovic was born on Oct. 14, 1957, in Bjelovar. Early in his youth his parents relocated to their roots in Split, Croatia. His father evoked in young Zlatko the love for his environment and the things in it. Mr. Marinovic was elected to lead a Croatian culinary team of chefs at the IKA Culinary Olympics in Germany and Luxembourg. He won the award for best Croatian chef in 2005, bestowed by the Croatian Culinary Association and a silver at the Mediterranean Chef’s Competition in 2006. He is also titled an Accredited B Level Chef at the World Association of Chefs’ Societies (WACS). In 2006 Zlatko published his first book “Nostromov odabir” (“Nostromo’s choice”). The chef is known to use food items like echinoids, sea anemones, and rare clams which are atypical in most countries.
Cooking starts with quality of ingredients, so I like to go to our local fish, vegetable, fruit and meat market. I like to touch, smell the food I’m buying, not to mention chat with sellers. The power of a dish comes from its fresh, local origins. Example, the Adriatic Sea has two hundred plus types of grasses, some of which I integrate in the dough of our pasta dishes. Seafarers s and islanders would take a rock that was full of life from the sea and make soup out of it. Knowing this sort of fact expands gastronomic possibilities. When you consider the Croatian culinary history, it is old, rich, and very creative. Our numerous islands have their own unique, isolated culinary traditions. In my next work I like to document the culinary history of the Dalmatian region starting from Maslenicki most to the boarder of Crna Gora.
How did cooking start for you? “It is true that my family loved to cook, but that is not how my cooking career started. I was always a lover of art and the people that created it. I very much liked to hang out with artists, I purchased my first painting at 18 years of age, a work by Andrija Jakelic. Life’s circumstances encouraged me to open an art gallery which was my first career move. I represented many artists, and I enjoyed this endeavor. In 1999, my wife and I came upon a space a few doors away from Split’s fish market and I thought, “Well, I can’t open another art gallery next to raw fish, so a restaurant idea was born and that is how cooking and “Nostromo” started for me. In the restaurant business you need reliability of staff, chefs etc.. I soon realized I had to be the one to create that stability, so I immersed myself into the concept of gastronomy/cuisine/cooking full heartedly.
I want to immerse my grandson Stipe in this knowledge, since he is interested and we are doing a new restaurant together, “Blue”, at the “Raddison Hotel”. I don’t want the old traditions to be forgotten. I also like to spend time with other chefs like Zdravko Kalabric (now 84). Zdravko was a master chef at the “Ritz Carlton” in Toronto. He was also a captain for Canada’s Olympic Cooking Competition, held every 4 years in (Erfurt) East Germany, a tradition that has a 112-year history. He was a bronze medal winner. I learned many things from Zdravko. In Croatia we need to be conscious of what we have, including 200 plus authentic grape vines/varieties. We must thank our fratri (monks) for storing seeds and thus the variation/adaptation of crops to a particular region. Our cuisine started 130 thousand years ago with our Krapinski pracovjek (Neanderthal from Krapina region of Croatia [he smiles]). The oldest urban settlement in Europe was Vinkovci, Croatia, so you know there was a lot going on there in terms of food, culture etc.. Be aware of your power, tradition and possibilities,” said the hard working, visionary chef.
Behind every successful man is a woman who holds together the necessities of the many endeavors the leading man engages in. Nina is the glue of the family.
“I don’t cook ,but do everything else. I make sure the money of our business is properly spent. You can say that I’m a logistics specialist. All my life I followed and supported the many endeavors my husband initiated. Zlatko is a determined creative force. At this point in my life, I wanted to spend more time with my six grandchildren and stroll by the sea or pool, but Zlatko got me involved in another restaurant project at the “Radisson Hotel”, called “Blue” Restaurant (she smiles). It’s a project for Zlatko, my grandson Stipe and me, of course,” said the pleasant, eloquent, open, family matriarch.
The cookbook “Croatian Cuisine” is printed in English. It covers traditional dishes, from all regions of Croatia. The dishes are accented and presentation heightened. It is unmistakably a master cookbook written by an explorer and master chef Zlatko Marinovic.
“I want the reset of the world to become familiar with our rich culinary history and thus taste the dishes in the book, “Croatian Cuisine”. The Croatian soul is expressed and comes through our dishes. We live what we do. When we first opened “Nostromo” we did not move from the restaurant for the first 5 years. It was a process of learning, experimenting. Then it was time to enter competitions. You have to love what you do. When I won the Golden/MasterChef title, I felt obligated to write a cookbook to share what I learned, and the title forces you to learn more and to keep expanding. It was and still is a 6 am to 11 pm endeavor. Who are we to conclude with certainty what our human boundary/ potential is.”
The book “Croatian Cuisine” is in the process to be available in the US and all English-speaking countries.
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