Ajvar (pepper sauce)

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:45 AM -0400 6/13/03, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>    Greetings again from Dubrovnik.
>
>AJVAR--This sells better than ketchup.  It's a pepper sauce, also
>with eggplant and garlic and spices.  One web site calls it "Balkan
>vegetable caviar."  Is it a trademark name, though?

That wasn't my impression.  The jars I've bought are labeled "Marco
Polo brand Ajvar".  I think of it as more of a spread than a sauce;
it's especially good slathered on a wrap in place of mayonnaise.
It's quite tasty (especially in the Hot Ajvar variety), healthy (as I
recall, the ingredients include just eggplant, peppers, garlic, and
olive oil), pretty (a bright orange-red), and very reasonable ($2.99
for a huge jar).  The only trick is eating it all before the mold
sets in (no preservatives!); by the end of the jar, I'm pretty tired
of it and need a break for a month.

Larry