Restive Balkans? No, Festive Balkans.

With summer slipping away, Bob gets his paprikash on.

Bob Garfield is spending his summer in Serbia, the beginning of a self-imposed semi-exile from the United States, which, to hear him tell it, has broken his heart. While there, he’s writing a book tentatively titled BALKANIZED: My Curious Travels Through the Historic, Dysphoric Republic of Neverland. This dispatch is drawn from one of his encounters there.

Onlookers watch chefs preparing a giant burger, known as “Pljeskavica,” at the grill festival in Leskovac.

BAC, Vojvodina, Serbia – Life is an accumulation of disappointments. For example, Rostiljijada is to be held the week of August 21 in Leskovac, Serbia. That obviously is the annual grilled meat festival, and with it the competition to cook up the world’s largest pljeskavica, which is sort of a hamburger but also very much not. Wimpy doesn’t eat pljeskavica. The Hamburgler doesn’t, either. But the gigundous patty — featuring beef, pork and lamb, plus onion, lard and spices — will possibly be among the tastiest cardiovascular time bombs ever.

But here’s the thing: After my all-too-brief 9-week Balkan sojourn, I’ill be flying back to the USA on the 17th, which means I’ll miss the festival. Dang.

Ordinarily this would be no big deal. There is no shortage of pljeskavica, cevapi or raznjici in these parts. I’ll be fine. The disappointment is rooted in me already having missed the Leskovac Family Karnival in July. This event featured a heavily promoted dance act, which most likely had the audience expecting a performance of kolo, the lively peasant dance performed in bright traditional village costume. If you’ve ever been to a Jewish wedding, think “Serbian hora.” The carnival act, however, was not a kolo. Nor was it ballet.

No, the Acrobat Troupe USB of Nis, in its fifth consecutive appearance at the annual Leskovac event, staged a strip tease.

More like a pole dance, actually, in which an acrobatic young artiste in red lingerie and knee pads writhed and grinded and generally seduced not a pole but a simple wooden chair, to the bemusement of the hundreds of assembled children and the horror of hundreds of the assembled adults. (Many other adults, apparently, were more than satisfied.) Nonetheless, quite a bit of outrage was outwardly raged, and newspapers ran photos of the dancer beneath the word SKANDAL.

Guess what that Serbian word means.

Citing their “moral responsibility,” Karnival organizers were obliged to apologize to attendees and the city of Leskovac itself:

We expected that their appearance will be on the high professional level. It was our big surprise that this dance number was performed. We were thinking to interrupt this number, but we were afraid we would cause even bigger scandal.

In that statement, the spokesman was quick to add that nothing in USB’s past performances augured this turn of events. “Four previous times, the audience was ecstatic.” This time around, only the dancer was. And so, vowed the chastened impresarios, “We inform you that Acrobatic Troupe USB from Nis will never ever again be invited to the carnival in Leskovac.”

To think that I could have been there to see history unfold, but squandered that opportunity, is too … ugh. But I shouldn’t whine, because one thing about Serbia in the summertime is that it is extremely festive. Fest galore, in dozens of cities and towns with dozens of themes. Beer. Jazz. The Gucu Trumpet Fest. The Žitište Chicken Fest. The Zaječar' Gitarijada (guitar fest). And, of course, the Mrčajevci Cabbage Festival, which reputedly puts all other cabbage festivals to shame.

So I had options, and, sure enough, the regional summer event I did attend had plenty to recommend it. I refer to the Bac (rhymes with “watch”) Food Festival in the semi-autonomous region of Vojvodina, home to many ethnic Hungarians, Slovaks and Croats, in addition to Serbs and a smattering of Bosnian Muslims.

Every year, there is a different theme, often tied to a particular ethnic cuisine. This year, in homage to the region’s Hungarians, the theme was paprikash. Four big vats over four separate fires, simmering the day through.

All of that plus wonderful side dishes, tempting strudels (apple, walnut and poppyseed), cold beer and rakija. And music! Details to follow.

Meantime, perhaps in response to my English or my crude few words of Serbian, an older man (older than the national average, not older than me, for heaven's sake) approaches with a big smile. For he is the famed Ilija Uzurov, winner of the 2007 Kanjize Fish Soup Competition. A bit of a Renaissance man, he is also a tractor-trailer dealer and certified SCUBA diver. I know this because his shirt documents his diving affiliation. His bona fides, he says, are to be discovered on YouTube. (And they are.)

He graciously pours me a glass of slivovitz and leads me from vat to vat for the whole breadth of the ethnic-stew experience. There was pork goulash, wild boar goulash, chicken in spicy sauce and skembici, which is tripe paprikash — and by tripe I mean beef stomach.

Hands down, the best I’ve ever had. Spicy, slimy and just the right amount of stomachy.

By the way, if you imagine I am just squeamish or snobbishly ethnocentric, you are very much mistaken. I have enjoyed fried insects in Mexico; fried pig brain in Evansville, Indiana; braised duck feet in exotic Arlington, Virginia; and, in Seoul, South Korea, dog stew. (No big deal. It tasted a lot like cat.) I will say this: Given the option, I'd advise you to take a pass on the duck feet. It’s like eating duck feet.

At this point, I sit down at one of five large picnic tables, which are set up in the backyard of the festival organizer.

I suppose I should mention that BacFest is not a tourist attraction, per se — more of a community thing, involving the town itself and the surrounding villages. It's in a clot of those locals that I now sit, stuffing a poppyseed strudel in my mouth as if it were the last meal on earth, or the antidote to skembici.

The locals are singing along with a small combo as they play a sacred ballad titled Od Pozege do Županje:

Mama, open the gate. Stop praying to God. I’m coming with my buddies.
I’m not opening it. I like to pray. Fuck you and your buddies.

Awww! So tender. You can't help but feel a shiver down the spine.

Some folks are merely singing, but others are dancing, too, especially a cheerful, squat young man sporting a straw hat with a peacock feather and a t-shirt that reads “North Division State ’85.” (That was a great year for the NDS Fightin’ Do Not Existers.)

His name is Rastislav Ribarski, who is 35 and hails from the village of Pekanu, 4 kilometers outside of Bac. He and his wife Jovana are here with their toddler, just enjoying the living shit out of the fest. He’s an ethnic Slovak whose Vojvodina roots go back 260 years, and who says he loves the blend of cultures. On my third slivovitz, I suggest that perhaps Bac is a microcosm of Yugoslavia’s glory days. He offers a bemused smile, which I interpret — allowing for our language differences — as “Dude, you're an imbecile.”

But they're a fantastic couple and fun to talk to. Turns out Rastislav is the veterinarian for the entire Greater Bac villageplex.

Me: “Did you by any chance remove the cow stomach from one of your customers?”

Rastislav (waving his hand at the array of paprikash vats): “Yes. I have a patient in every pot.” 

I’m 100% sure he was joking.

OK, 90%.