Croatian Cuisine (1995)

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>    BUZARA
>As much as it almost primevally simple to prepare, so is buzara an
>etymological mystery.

Maybe not too mysterious. "Buzara" or "busara" apparently is dialectal
Italian for "cheat" (= "imbroglio"). It is cognate with Italian "buggera",
I think, similar in sense, related to the verb "buggerare" = "cheat",
"sodomize", etc., apparently ultimately from "Bulgar", with the well-known
English cognate. Maybe not too big a semantic step from "buzara" =
"imbroglio" to "buzara" = "stew" or so. "Shrimp bugger-up" is not much
worse than "olla podrida" maybe. Still the buzara purveyor might prefer a
"mysterious" etymology.

-- Doug Wilson