Spasenija Pata Marković

Spasenija Pata Marković (Serbian Cyrillic: Спасенија Пата Марковић; 31 December 1881 – 1974) was a Serbian cookbook author. She is considered the author of the most extensive collection of culinary recipes written in Serbia. This cookbook was published in 1939 under the title My Cookbook, and was later better known as Pata's Cookbook. In 1956, the publishing house Narodna knjiga published Veliki narodni kuvar based on her original cookbook, which by that time had about 20 editions. The introduction to this new edition reads: "This book is based on the famous book My Cookbook, which was published by the newspaper Politika before the war, and edited by Spasenija Pata Marković." The "Great National Cookbook" contains all the recipes of the pre-war edition of the mentioned book, with some other tips.

Some historians rank Marković among the first learned women in Serbia to fight for equal rights for both women and men among all strata of society.

Early life Marković was born as Spasenija Djurić on 31 December 1881. Pata's father, Dimitrije Đurić, was a general, Minister of War and a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences, while her mother Persida was the daughter of Dimitrije Matić, Minister of Justice and Education, Marković received first-class upbringing and education: she was educated in Vienna, where she graduated from a famous school for housewives and became an excellent cook, During the 1920s and 1930s, her textbook for housewives was published once a week. It was also published during the dictatorship of Aleksandar Karađorđević, when, as a weekly, it was the only book that was published without censorship. On one occasion, Pata's brother made ironic comments about the king and the dictatorship through recipes. As a result, the weekly was banned, and Serbia became the only country that, at that time, banned a book that deals with cooking.

The Belgrade chronicler Branislav Nušić wrote about Marković as follows: