The village of Sirnea still preserves its archaic flavor, of our parents’ childhood, conserving its fairytale landscape, with villages spread over the hills, with warm and gentle people who take care of long-lasting households and feed on the beauty of the place.
People are slowly starting to discover the warmth of this place too, to visit it for the first time, fall in love and come back to see more, taste more, feel more.
The landscape is largely untouched and allows you to step back in time. If you are not used to it, you may even be surprised by the simplicity of the place and the people, but also by their warmth.
We can start with the taste of childhood. When we were kids, maybe we didn’t appreciate the simple life we had and we always wanted more and more, which is perfectly normal and natural. We reached where we wanted and where we dreamed, but we realized that we were missing something. For some of us, it may be the warmth of a place, the feeling given by a smell, the memory given by a taste.
In Sirnea, not only the beauty of the place has been preserved, but also the taste of traditional and local dishes, an authentic taste, which you feel from the first bite and which instantly awakens your childhood memories, of your parents and grandparents.
If you come to this area, you should know that there are a multitude of local producers who still keep sacred the hidden recipes of their ancestors and which we heartily advise you to try.
The first flavor to try is the bellows cheese, especially if you are a cheese fan. Bellows cheese is a very famous Romanian specialty, especially in the Rucăr-Bran area, not only because of its taste, but also because of its age and the way it is prepared. Our grandparents prepared it in the barn, and in our area there are still people passionate about gastronomy who are still trying to reproduce that taste. Bellows cheese is actually a fermented cheese kept in a piece of sheep or goat skin. This cheese is obtained from sheep’s milk and has a rich, sometimes slightly spicy, salty taste, a creamy and buttery texture, yellowish-white in color.
If you want to take everything to the next level, we recommend you to try another culinary experience where you will have the opportunity to taste bellows cheese, but prepared differently: bulzul. Bulzul has become very popular, there are many variations, but the authentic bulzul recipe is very simple and delicious.
The variants have been adapted in each area of the country, but the bulz consumed in our area is a simple and tasty bulz from Brăne, made on the grill, eaten on the knees, with the hand, blowing so as not to burn you, as our grandparents did. Also, how many of us didn’t scrunch up our noses when we heard about polenta and now enjoy it?
Brănean bulz is very popular in this area, there is no occasion not to hold a traditional fair and put a bulz wrapped in aluminum foil on the grill. The recipe is simple: make a stronger polenta, let it cool, put cheese inside and form balls, which are then baked on a hot grill. Thus, we will have a crispy crust with a delicious core.
Now that we’ve whetted your appetite, we’ll leave it to you to enjoy these ideas and make your plans for walking around Sirnea! We are sure you will be impressed! You may also see us, hiding behind the fir trees.
