Slovakia
- Karen Darnell
- Dec 18, 2022
- 3 min read
In September, Mom, Dad, and I stopped on our way to Point Reyes to eat at Vladimir’s Czech Restaurant. I hadn’t found a Slovakian restaurant in California, but at least this one put us in the region. We had Moravian bread, mildly vinegary cucumbers, sweet red cabbage, Czech dumplings, chicken paprikash, and apple strudel. We enjoyed the live music in the restaurant, and loved seeing the deer and elk along the road. It was a lovely day. Mom said it was her best day since the pandemic started. I still wanted to get specific to Slovakian food, so I set a date in October to cook with Andrea and her family, including Mike, Shasten, Kaden, and their neighbor Perry.
I showed up with ingredients for my two Slovakian dishes, expecting that Andrea would make two, and Perry would make one. That would have been plenty to feed us. But Andrea had been inspired and made five. Perry made two, which brought our total to nine! We had cauliflower soup, cucumber salad, cooked red cabbage with apples, stuffed cabbage (one pan with meat, one with veggie meat), fettuccine in butter and poppy seeds, potatoes with sauerkraut, roast pork, rye bread, and bread pudding with apples and raisins. We skipped the meringue on top of the bread pudding, which was only mildly sweet, almost like another entree. We had a lovely long conversation over the dinner table, and the meal felt like a huge Slovakian feast. We were working from this webpage for recipes: https://www.slovakcooking.com/contents/.
I’ve been to Slovakia with Allan, Kristen, and Kaitlin. We drove to Bratislava on a day trip from Vienna. Kaitlin was on a break from college in France, and we were able to travel with her between Christmas and the New Year. I remember seeing Soviet era apartment buildings along the road, exploring the castle, visiting a wonderful candy store, and appreciating the humorous and unique statues. I was most moved as we stood on the eastern shore of the Danube looking west to where four hundred people were shot trying to escape Communism. The memorial stone says that the Iron Curtain cannot be pulled away, it can only be cracked. I am grateful for those cracks and the fact I could stand inside an area that once seemed so impenetrable.
Previous to the rule of Communism, the time Slovakia was dominated by Nazi Germany was also difficult. The people of Slovakia still feel the effects. I appreciated both the meaningful story and beautiful scenery in a movie that illustrates those struggles, The Interpreter: https://tubitv.com/movies/601221/the-interpreter
Looking for literature set in Slovakia and available at the local library was a challenge, but I was able to listen to the eaudiobook of one of the Jana Matinvova detective stories by Michael Genelin. There is plenty of literature from Slovakia on Words Without Borders, including this issue on women's writing: https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/collection/new-slovak-womens-writing/
You would think that being in Europe, the music from Slovakia would sound familiar, but no. Somehow they developed something completely different in their mountain communities. Check this webpage for many of their musicians and instruments. I particularly appreciated the first video for the musician’s story and humor: https://worldmusiccentral.org/world-music-resources/musician-biographies/slovak-music/
Humor seems to be plentiful in Slovakia. My favorite of all the resources I found are the videos by PPPeter, a Slovakian YouTuber. In this video, he shares “The Number One Reason to Visit Slovakia:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbvEVojvJLc
I enjoyed my brief visit to Slovakia and would happily go again to get into the beautiful mountains. Here are more examples of places to go: https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-places-visit-slovakia/#more-7445. I look forward to that time when we can travel broadly again. In the meantime, I’m hoping we all survive, thrive, recognize our mutual humanity, learn to deal with our conflicts, and allow peace, health, and safety to flourish in Slovakia and throughout the world.
Comments