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 Grandmother's kitchen

Breakfast

Usually, housewives prepared the following for breakfast:

  • cabbage and 'zganci' (hard-boiled corn mush) or
  • milk and 'zganci' or
  • turnip with larded corn flour or
  • larded potatoes or
  • wheat porridge or
  • 'prezganka', roux soup: a soup made by browning flour on lard and adding water; with 'zganci' or dry bread or
  • at feast at which the meet of freshly slaughtered animals, especially pork was eaten: black pudding with 'zganci' or with bread made of mixed flour or
  • coffee substitute made of cereals known as "white coffee" (they cooked the following commonly known commercial types: 'Cikorija', 'Proja' and 'Knajp') and 'zganci' or
  • nowadays, bread and tea.

When they ran out of milk they also prepared 'prezganka' for breakfast. 'Prezganka' with 'mlinci', a type of flat unleavened bread, was considered to be a special breakfast and, for example, was prepared for woodcutters in winter before they went to forest cutting down trees.
 


 

Lunch

For lunch they ate the following:

  • potatoes and beans or
  • potatoes and string beans or
  • sweet cabbage and potatoes or
  • potatoes with a soup, cake known as 'prosta povetica' or
  • kohlrabi, potatoes and carrots or
  • carrots, beans and potatoes or
  • plain horsebeans or beans or
  • peas or green peas and potatoes with a soup or
  • porridge made of barley with green peas or
  • plain corn and beans or
  • sauerkraut and beans or
  • pickled turnip and beans or
  • porridge made of barley or
  • cucumber salad, potatoes with 'zganci' or
  • sauerkraut or pickled turnip, potatoes with 'zganci'
  • soup with 'struklji' dumplings, 'struklji' on itself or
  • small 'strukeljci' dumplings with a soup.

Before WW2 some housewives of the village 'Nerajec' also prepared the following for lunch:

  • stew known as 'ajmoht' made of low quality parts of home bread rabbits or chicken with 'bleki' or 'strukeljci' dumplings or
  • different sauces served with potato dumplings or
  • plump dumplings or
  • potato dumplings larded with bread crumbs and served with a salad.

'Struklji' were considered to be a better meal, and primarily these were prepared on Fridays. The cooks did not throw away the soup that was left over. They poured it over cooked mashed potatoes and served it as a thick soup. Shredded apples and horseradish, and in the summer, cucumber salad was served with 'struklji' made of leavened dough. 'Strukeljci' were also served only with soup, i.e. the water in which they were cooked.

If a housewife considered the meal not being substantial enough they also prepared something in addition to it. Thus one of the villagers says: "If a lunch was not good enough, our mother, occasionally, to top up, prepared eggs with cracklings or fried shredded potatoes to which she added an egg, a bit of butter and flour. Occasionally, she also made 'prostacek'. We ate it hot."
 

Supper

For supper the housewives prepared:

  • porridge made of rye larded with cracklings or served with milk or
  • zganci' made of wheat or 'topolovi zganci'
  • porridge made of wheat or
  • 'sukanec'
  • potato salad or
  • larded potatoes
  • potatoes with soup, larded with roux, i.e. sauce made by browning flour on lard and adding some water, or
  • whole potatoes, larded with cracklings or
  • larded turnips or
  • sweet turnips with potatoes or
  • sour milk with bread made of mixed flour or
  • bread and cheese or
  • bean salad or
  • stewed dried fruit or
  • cabbage salad with beans and potatoes or
  • 'zganci' with 'prezganka' or
  • sauerkraut with oil, 'coffee' made of chicory
  • in the autumn, sometimes, they also baked apples.

Whole potatoes or potatoes in pieces were often served with the dishes made of sauerkraut, turnip, kohlrabi, barley and others. "It was a habit that we always munched something in addition to the main dish." says the villager. Every meal was also accompanied by bread.

Apples were baked on fat. The villager remembers: "It had a nice smell if you used a bit of fat."

In the winter they always cooked warm supper, however, this was not so often the case in the summer when there was enough green beans and salad. Those more well-off also had a coup of 'proja coffee' after supper. They did not have a light meal before lunch known as 'dojuzinek' (literally, up-to-lunch) or 'mala juzina' (small lunch). Only when workers not belonging to the family came to help on a field or when they were engaged in a harder work, they prepared potato salad, sour milk with bread and bacon with onions.
 

Sunday dishes

Sunday lunch was primarily always richer than that of the other days because it also consisted of meat, primarily poultry or fresh/smoked pork. In the poorer families the Sunday lunch was not much different than lunch on any other day.

For richer families the Sunday lunch usually consisted of soup and stuffed chicken; in the winter they also had roasted pork. If the soup was made of beef, then the housewives served the meat with a special sauce made of horseradish, bread and soup. As a side-dish, the housewives prepared roast or baked potatoes and seasonal salad. The sauce made of shredded apples and horseradish was served with everyday dishes.

Everyday food was rather monotonous, frugal, with only a little fat so the older people like to remember high religious feasts (Easter, Christmas), wedding and important farm works because of the good food they had then.

 

  From the book "Nerajska hrana"written by Ksenija Khalil
Crnomelj, 1999

 

 
       
   

Wines from Bela krajina

 
   

ÄŒrnomelj

 
   

Metlika

 
   

SemiÄ

 
   

Krupa

 
   

Traditional Customs of Bela krajina

 
   

Grandmother's kitchen

 
   

Home craft

 
   

Lahinja nature park

 
   

Mitrov tempelj

 
   

Historic milestones