National Dishes of Croatia | Ajvar

Ajvar next for Croatia on my cook around the world challenge.
It’s like a roasted pepper (and aubergine) dippy spread thing, with some vinegar and sugar and stuff.
I’m glad I didn’t follow the ‘use 10kg of red peppers’ recipes or I’d have buckets of the stuff.
It actually seems to be from Serbia originally but is popular all over the Balkans…and I’ve done Serbia already.

The name is related to caviar:-

‘havyar, which means “salted roe, caviar” shares an etymology with “caviar”…Prior to the 20th century, significant local production of caviar occurred on the Danube, with sturgeon swimming from the Black Sea up to Belgrade.[… the domestic production of caviar became unsteady in the 1890s because of labor disputes. Eventually a special pepper salad was offered as a substitute in Belgrade restaurants under the name “red ajvar”