The Slow Food movement started in 1989 as a response to the opening of McDonald's restaurant in Rome. Carlo Petrini, the Italian journalist who launched the movement, thought it was unfortunate that a city with high-quality local cuisine had opened its doors to mass-produced food. Since then, the Slow Food movement has spread to more … Continue reading Slow Food Slovakia
The Slovak word for a bilberry is one of those funny words we like to teach foreigners when they're curious about our language. Why? Because Slovak is ranked among the most difficult languages in the world, and if we wanted to assess your linguistic calibre, then čučoriedka would be one of the testing words. Čučoriedky (tchou-tcho-ryiedki) … Continue reading Quick-and-easy Bilberry Cake
This recipe was inspired by an overload of zucchini a few weeks ago, and a newsletter from Once upon a chef that landed in my inbox at about the same time. The zucchini came together with hand-picked black and red currants from my friend parents' garden, so I picked this recipe from Jenn's zucchini menu to put … Continue reading Fluted Zucchini Cake
It was during one of my pregnancies when I fell out of love with shop-bought ketchup. My taste became sharper and more sensitive to artificial flavourings and chemical preservatives, so I naturally avoided them in all foods. On one occasion though, I tried my mum's homemade ketchup, and it felt like a discovery. As a … Continue reading Home-made Ketchup
As with all other produce this summer, we're blessed with a plentiful crop of apricots. Their main growing area is in the warm southern regions of Slovakia, but thanks to the new tougher varieties developed over the last few years, we can now harvest this soft, fleshy fruit in colder climates as well. I don't … Continue reading Preserving apricots
This year's strawberry season has been so good and so long. Ample sunshine and an uncharacteristically warm spring made the berries ripen earlier than usual and brought about very good crops, even in areas that aren't normally considered 'strawberry-friendly'. To get hands-on experience of the harvest, we went to a self-pick farm about an hour … Continue reading Delicate Strawberry Pie
I have to say it straightaway that the title of this post is somewhat misleading. In fact, I'm going to show you how to separate curds from whey in leftover milk, which some people like to call 'old' milk. I, for my part, would never use the term for the milk that is close to, … Continue reading How to make your own cottage cheese
There is a host of traditions and beliefs linked to Slovak Easter. Some are Christian with traces of Jewish mythology, others have pagan roots. It seems to me though that they all celebrate Easter as a spring festival that brings new life. The Slovak name for the Thursday before Easter is Zelený štvrtok, which literally translates … Continue reading Potato Kugel
I came across the recipe for Sour Cherry Cakes (Višňové koláče) when I was researching beer as an ingredient in Slovak cooking. You might not know, as I hadn't before, that beer can also be used in baking. And you may be surprised, as I was two years ago, just by how tasty these little cherry-filled … Continue reading Sour Cherry Cakes
Sauerkraut is as important an ingredient in Slovak cooking as olive oil is in Italian or tofu in Asian. We grow up eating sauerkraut in both the raw form or cooked in our most typical and oldest dishes, like a sauerkraut soup or strapatchki. Indeed, all these ancient recipes come from the times when sauerkraut, alongside … Continue reading Red Lentil and Mushroom Dip
