Runc pie

The Runc pie was registered at the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks.

Ștefan Baciu, 29.09.2019, 14:39

Sometimes traditional dishes have a certificate too. In Runcu Salvei village, Bistrita-Nasaud County, northern Romania, housewives cook a cheese pie which is made only in that place. The village hall has registered it as the Runc pie at the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks, OSIM. The Runc pie looks like a roll-up or a pound cake and has its own story. They say that a village woman cooking the food for a wedding had some dough and cheese left which she used to make the Runc pie. Eversince, all village women have been making that pie which visitors can taste at the village feasts.

To make the Runc pie you need flour, cow milk cheese, sheep milk cheese, three eggs, yeast and baking powder. In the middle of the flour you are to knead make a little hole where you have to put the eggs, yeast and a little sugar. Then knead the flour with some water and the afore-mentioned ingredients and let it leaven. In the meantime prepare the filling. Crumble the cow milk cheese and the sheep milk cheese which is a little pungent. Mix them both with a little baking powder. After the dough has leavened, stretch it so that it should be a finger thick; then spread the filling on the dough, roll it up and put it in a tray greased with a little oil. Let it leaven for about a quarter of an hour and then bake it in the oven. Cut the pie into slices and serve it hot or cold as a starter.

Similar pies are made in the Western Carpathian Mountains, but they are made from two pieces of puff pastry with the filling of cheese, mostly salty, in-between. They are baked on the hotplate. There is some similar pastry in the former mining locality of Samobor, Croatia. It looks like a tart filled with salty cheese, hazelnuts or vegetables; in 2007 it was included in the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage.