What does “beli luk” mean in Serbian?

In Serbian, garlic is beli luk, literally “white onion”, and the everyday onion is crni luk, “black onion”. Luk covers the whole family, and the colour says which one you mean. Standard Croatian prefers its own word, češnjak, and writes the colour with ije, bijeli, so the same recipe reads differently on each side of the border.

This cook seasons the chicken with «malo belog luka u prahu» (“a little garlic powder”) and a few lines later chops «dve, tri glavice crnog luka» (“two or three onions”). The kitchen talk carries more Serbian markers: paradajz for tomato (standard Croatian rajčica), pirinač for rice (riža) and rerna for the oven (pećnica).