Klokocevac, Serbia - Charcoal piles are smoking in the narrow valleys of Klokocevac, a small village in eastern Serbia 15 kilometres south of the Danube River near the Romanian and Bulgarian borders. The grilling season in Western Europe is long over, but charcoal is already being made for next summer. Klokocevac is devoted heart and soul to charcoal burning, a millennia-old skilled trade that practically died out in Western Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The piles everywhere in the village are made of bricks fashioned into a cap-shaped chamber up to three metres high. Tree branches and trunks are cut and then stacked in the chamber through a door on the ground.
Each charcoal-burning family is said to have its own secret wood mixture because the quality of the charcoal depends on the combination, and proportion, of various kinds of oak as well as white and red beech.
In the middle of the pile is a flame duct, at the top of which kindling is set on fire. The duct is then covered airtight with soil, but not before the door has been shut.
"The art of burning charcoal is to char, not burn up, the wood inside," explained Slavica Stevanovic, who runs the family charcoal-burning firm Fagos with her husband, Jaroslav. "Wood has to be added every morning and evening to replace what's burned up."
The dirty work seems to be profitable. Some families export their charcoal in 10-kilogram packages to neighbouring countries such as Italy or Switzerland.
The charcoal burners poke air vents into the piles. White smoke rises from them first, a sign that water vapour is being drawn from the wood. As soon as light-coloured smoke appears, the vents are sealed and new ones are made lower in the pile.
After 15 days the last vent, at ground level, is sealed. The pile is "done." It cools down for another two days. Then the charcoal is removed. The Stevanovics extinguish smouldering pieces of wood with water from a nearby brook. Finally, the charcoal is packaged for transport.
Experienced grillers know that charcoal, which is produced at temperatures of at least 300 degrees centigrade, burns almost flamelessly and with more heat than wood.
The charcoal burners of Klokocevac swear by their charcoal, which they say is superior to the industrially-made competition. They say they use the best wood only and no wood industry waste that has been chemically treated.
Their work leaves their faces, arms and hands "blacker than black," said Slavica Stevanovic. But that, she added, is no problem. "The soot can simply be washed off."
