In postwar countries, food culture is a sign of a society healing itself

When you can go out for tapas in Bosnia or to a French bistro in Belfast, life is as it should be

Recently, I fell into an email correspondence with a Bosnian writer and standup comedian called Mirko Bozic. We were discussing one of my less positive restaurant reviews. It seems the appetite for a scathing takedown is just as pronounced in the Balkans as it is in London. His analysis of what made for good food was fun, but it was when he told me that he was writing from Mostar that I leaned into my computer screen.

Back in the early 90s, I worked on a newspaper feature about the Stari Most, the gorgeous 16th-century Ottoman bridge that crossed the Neretva river, linking the city’s various communities. In November 1993, at the height of the brutal Bosnian war, the bridge was destroyed. Of course, it was a horrendous piece of cultural vandalism. But it was also a blunt, physical symbol for what was happening to Bosnia’s multi-ethnic communities.