What’s a pusharata? From Croatia to Biloxi, here’s a history of the classic Coast dessert.
For many in Biloxi, Christmastime is synonymous with a famous Yugoslavian dessert that came to the Mississippi Coast in the early 1900s.
Pusharatas are small fried dough balls topped with a delicious almond glaze. You can get them in winter at farmer’s markets and fairs in South Mississippi, and annually at the Slavonian Lodge on Dec. 23.
Here’s a brief history of how pusharatas became a classic dessert in the Gulfport-Biloxi metro, from the Sun Herald archives:
- Pusharatas began being made at homes in the Biloxi area as early as 1903, when people from Croatia immigrated to South Mississippi and began working in the seafood processing industry here. Two decades later, Biloxi Mayor “FoFo” Gilich told the Sun Herald in 2018, the fishing industry was dominated by Croatian Americans.
- To put it simply, a pusharata is a “fried donut filled with fruit and topped with a powdered sugar glaze,” Slavonian Lodge ladies auxiliary member Patsy Kuluz told the Sun Herald in 2018.
- The process to make them can be tedious, because you have to make the dough, chop the nuts and fruits that go inside and create the glaze. It often takes more than one person to create a good batch of pusharatas.
- You have to have cool, dry weather to make pusharatas or the glaze won’t set right.
- Gilich says to eat them soon after the pusharatas are finished cooking “or they will turn as hard as a baseball.”
If you would like to try your hand at making pusharatas for you or your family, here are a few staple recipes from the Sun Herald archives:
PUSHARATAS
- 5 pounds self-rising flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 6 orange peelings, grated
- 3 whole apples, grated
- 6 lemons peelings, grated
- 3 cups raisins
- 1/2 cup whiskey
- 3 tablespoons vanilla
- 1/2 gallon milk
- 2 cups pecans, chopped finely
Mix flour and sugar together first. Then combine grated apples, oranges, lemons, pecans and raisins (not grated) together. Add these ingredients into the flour and sugar and mix well together. Add milk, whiskey and vanilla to the ingredients. Mix well together. In teaspoonful lumps, deep fat fry pusharata batter until golden brown.
Glaze:
- 6 boxes powdered sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 4 cans evaporated milk
Mix sugar, extract and milk. Glaze pusharatas while they are still hot from frying. Yield: About 300 pusharatas.
— Submitted by Ann Smith
MISS DEENIE’S PUSHARATAS
- 5 pounds self-rising flour
- 2- 1/2 cups sugar ( 1/2 cup for the fruit, below; 2 cups for the flour mixture)
- 2 cups raisins
- 3 tablespoons nutmeg
- 3 tablespoons cinnamon
- 3 tablespoons baking powder
- 2 tablespoons whiskey
- 2 tablespoons vanilla
- 4 large apples
- 4 large oranges
- 1 lemon
- 6 cups chopped pecans
- 1/2 gallon milk
- Sugar glaze
Combine the dry ingredients: flour, 2 cups sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and baking powder. Peel and core the apples. Peel and pit the oranges and lemon. Mince the fruit or run it through a blender or a food processor, but don’t liquefy; combine with 1/2 cup sugar. Combine wet ingredients: whiskey, vanilla and milk. Stir wet ingredients into dry. Then mix in fruit, raisins and pecans.
Heat 1/2 to 1 gallon cooking oil in a deep fryer. Drop balls of dough (the ladies use a special scoop or just a standard coffee teaspoon) into hot fat, being careful not to crowd the pieces. Fry until golden brown, then drain on paper towels. Coat with sugar glaze.
Sugar glaze: Combine 2 or 3 cans of evaporated milk with 6 pounds confectioner’s sugar and almond extract to taste. Start with the sifted sugar and add the milk gradually, stirring all the while, till you reach a glaze consistency. Add the extract a small amount at a time, to taste, and remember that the extract adds moisture, too.
— Submitted by Ginger Freemyer
