Traditional food in Slovakia

From sweets, through big "lunch or dinner" foods, to soups and salty foods every country has their own and every one is unique. Although, some are popular all around the world (like pizza or pasta from Italy etc.), some countries are completely not known with their "food culture". Like Slovakia. Nobody who hasn't been here knows what we have here. And let me tell you, it is interesting! But still, you probably haven't heard about for instance: "Bryndzove halushky".

Bryndzove halushky

Slovakia was a type of country that had those wooden houses and really interesting signs and stuff you knew they were from Slovakia when you saw them (or at the time it was like that). Today, a lot of the cool culture that has been around Slovakia is forgotten or unused. But some stuff never get forgotten. Like the food. In Slovakia, we have special foods like Bryndzove halushky.

Bryndzove halusky (spelled brin dso ve ha lush ky) is a top meal when it comes to Slovakia. Halushky are a special type of pasta and kind of pastry mix looking like a little asymmetric ball  (but a lot of them). They can be served with different toppings:

• sour cabbage
• but "bryndza" is the most famous

Bryndza is a type of sheep cheese. The Bryndzove halushky are served with the bryndza (could be also called Slovak sour cream). Then you can add on top for example fried onions and/or bacon and/or spring onion. Similar food that is a kind of a symbol of Slovak food as well is Pirohy.

Pirohy

They are similar to the Bryndzove halushky. They are a special pasta but you put the stuff in them. They can be mashed potatoes, bryndza or both. you put that in the piroh (singular to pirohy) while it is opened and then close it. You again can put also the spring onion, fried onion and bacon.

Soups

Goulash

Goulash is a traditional soup when it comes to Slovakia. Every real Slovak knows what it is.

It's made from meat (it can be different kinds), potatoes, some veggies and seasoning.

It's usually made in a large cauldron, where it stays for a couple of hours before served.

There can be believe it or not vegetarian kinds of goulash as well. Those are made from those "no meat but taste like meat" sausages and stuff like that, or just have like tofu or something in it.

Kapustnica

Kapustnica is another traditional soup. We usually have it as a part of our "special christmas evening meal" (more information in my previous blog post). 

This soup is kind of like goulash, but there is also sour cabbage added. So it is basically a sour soup with meat, sausages and potatoes. People like to cook it as well throughout the year, not like a "christmas dish" though.

There is a vegetarian version to this soup as well, but it is a bit different. It's called "Jucha".

But you don't spell it like that in english, in english you cannot write the right saying for this word. This soup has also sour cabbage, but instead of meat, sausages and potatoes, there are beans and pasta. Usually the pasta is like small balls.

I could do a single blog post about recipes to those deliciousnesses if you'd like to in the future.

Sweets

Slovak people are people that like their own sweets really good. They are most wafers with something or just a wafoury type of sweet, but we of course have candy as well (and a lot of kinds). For a small package we have a lot of goodness in Slovakia.
Wafer sweets like "horalky" or "delisa" chocolate and wafer bars are my favorite though. We also have a lot of other sweets like:

• Mata
• Lina
• Zlate (different types)
• Kashtany
• Minonky
• Doxy
• And others

I know this is kind of useless since you cannot get the taste, that is the important part. But here you have a video of a person trying some of the sweets and other Slovak food: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqIz2OFG5FU