What to eat Slovakia? culinary specialties and gastronomy

Prepared with rich ingredients that are supposed to stick to the body, Slovak cuisine could not do without a better ambassador than bryndzové halušky. Considered to be the national dish, this mountain dish is prepared with tiny potato gnocchi served with sheep's cheese. The term ' halušky ' is used to refer to these kinds of small pasta. It is traditionally accompanied by a glass of žinčica (sheep's whey). Very similarly, strapačky replaces sheep's cheese, bryndza, with sauerkraut. Another similar dish, pirohy are thick potato ravioli, usually stuffed with sheep's cheese, cabbage, mushrooms or meat. They are found in Poland under the better known name of pierogi

.

While often associated with Hungarian gastronomy, goulash (guláš) is also widely used in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This paprika-flavoured stew, usually made from beef and garnished with potatoes and carrots, requires a long cooking time. It is very popular and is often served at village festivals and other local events. Gulášová polievka is a similar, but more liquid version, close to a soup. Similar to it is kapustnica, a cabbage and smoked sausage soup also seasoned with paprika. This hearty soup is part of the traditional Christmas Eve meal. There are also many recipes for soups, which are generally popular dishes in Central Europe, such as fazuľová, a thick red bean soup topped with sausage. Conversely, rezancová is a light chicken broth with vermicelli, while the term demikát

refers to a velvety soup.

Slovaks are also very fond of fried dishes. One example is kapor so zemiakovým šalátom, a fried carp traditionally served at Christmas. The carp is normally bought in advance and kept alive in a clear water basin where it can purge itself and get rid of its sometimes strong taste of mud. It is then breaded and fried and is eaten with a potato salad with onions, gherkins and mayonnaise. Rezeň is a Viennese speciality better known under the German name of schnitzel. This breaded schnitzel (which can be pork, veal or chicken) is found all over Central Europe. It is traditionally accompanied by potato salad, but is increasingly eaten with French fries. Finally, vyprážaný syr

is the caloric dish par excellence, which is available on the menu of all traditional restaurants. It consists of cheese (traditionally edam or camembert) breaded and fried. This dish is often accompanied by French fries and tartar sauce.

A nutritious and easy-to-grow product, the potato is widely used in Slovak cuisine. One example is the very popular zemiakové placky, grated potato patties, similar to röstis, often served with sour cream and chives. The živánska, a potato gratin with onions and sausage rings, or the živánska, fučka, a very creamy mashed potato served with caramelised onions, are also popular. The local cuisine does not necessarily give pride of place to vegetables, which are rarely cooked without meat or dairy, although the result is often tempting as with plnená paprika, peppers stuffed with meat and tomato sauce. Finally, mushrooms - wild mushrooms in particular - are widely consumed. One can taste hríbová praženica

, a kind of mushroom brouillade. Many pork products make up Slovak cuisine, such as slanina, bacon, or údená klobása, a term for different types of smoked sausages, sometimes containing paprika. Krvavničky are similar to black puddings, while jaternice (occasionally called hurky) are made from various cuts of pork as well as rice and liver. On the cheese side, Slovaks love bryndza, a fresh cheese made from sheep's milk used in many dishes. You can also try other cheeses that have the particularity of being smoked, such asoštiepok, which is beautifully shaped like an Easter egg, or parenica, which looks like an astonishing coil of cheese that is unrolled to be torn to shreds for tasting.

Like its Central European neighbours, Slovakia offers a beautiful variety of desserts to be tasted in cukráreň (pastries). As a legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, every town, no matter how small, has a pastry shop offering all kinds of cakes accompanied by tea, coffee or hot chocolate. Examples include bábovka, the Slavonic equivalent of kouglof, which sometimes contains cocoa, marhuľový koláč, a soft apricot cake, or ryžový nákyp, a rice pudding with rice pudding, decorated with a melting meringue. Rolls such as the popular makovnik (poppy seed),orechovnik (walnut) or tvarohový závin (cottage cheese) are very popular. It is sometimes interchangeable with the word štrúdľa which, unsurprisingly, is the Slovak equivalent of strudel. It is most often topped with apples (jablková) or a poppy-cherry mixture (makovo-višňová

).

Pancakes (palacinky) are on the menu of every restaurant. They are not in themselves very different from our wheat pancakes, although in Slovakia they are a dessert of choice. They are usually filled with fresh or cooked fruit, chocolate, jam and of course whipped cream. Whipped cream is also used as a filling for veterníky, caramel-coated cabbage. Parené buchty are amazing steamed buns usually filled with plum jam and generously sprinkled with cocoa before serving. Finally, the laskonky

is a delicacy composed of two discs of walnut meringue topped with coffee whipped cream. During the festive season, especially at Christmas markets, you can enjoy specialities such as the unmistakable trdelník, a spit cake resembling a thick tube of dough covered with sugar and barbecued golden. It can be found under other names in Central Europe such as kürtőskalács in Hungary. It is believed that this recipe nevertheless originated in Slovakia, where the best comes from the town of Skalica and is called skalický trdelník. Bratislavské rožky or Bratislava rolls are more like crumbly croissants filled with cream of poppy seed or walnut. Unsurprisingly, Christmas is also an opportunity to devour a large number of sweets prepared for this time of year, such as medovníčky, honey biscuits often in the shape of stars or fir trees finely decorated with white icing. The mačacie oči (literally "cat's eye") are the equivalent of our eyeglass biscuits, filled with jam, while the medvedie labky or bear paws are a kind of chocolate madeleines. Finally, perník is a broad term for several gingerbread specialties between the soft cake and the harder biscuit used to make edible houses, close to the Russian prianik.

Although the Slovaks are not as big consumers of beer/pivo as their Czech neighbours, who come first on the podium, beer is still a serious topic in Slovakia. Beer has been produced in the region since ancient times and its production exploded from the Middle Ages onwards. In bars, it usually costs less than a glass of fruit juice and is served by the pint (50 cl). If you want a small beer (30 cl), it is better to specify it. Almost every region has its local production, try it and you will find the one you like. Among the most famous are the Zlaty Bažant brewed in Hurbanovo in the south-west of the country, the Šariš in the region of the same name in the east, the Urpiner brewed in Banská Bystrica in the centre, as well as the Corgoň, the Steiger, the Erb or the Topvar. The beer of the High Tatras, Tatran, is much less famous. As everywhere else in Europe, the fashion for microbreweries has taken hold in Slovakia, which has many bars and taverns serving locally produced beers with an often particular and sometimes excellent taste. Warning: note that Slovaks do not use the same scale as the French to calculate alcohol concentration. Local beers at 10 or 12° are therefore equivalent to 4 or 5° in France.

Slovakia has privatized its wineries little by little. The best wines are of international standard, even if the national wine production is sometimes drowned in the middle of more mediocre wines, produced at low cost. The whites and especially the Rieslings of Château-Bela are among the best wines of the country. More than twenty grape varieties are grown in the six wine regions of the southern plains (Lesser Carpathians, Nitra region, South Slovakia, Chateau-Bela, South Central Slovakia, Eastern Slovakia and Tokaj region). If only one Slovakian wine should be chosen, it would be the tokaj

, which is probably the best known wine in Central Europe for its unique aromatic richness, a luxury product very attractive for the international market. So much so that Hungary and Slovakia, the two producing countries, have been waging a trade war since the 1960s over who would have the monopoly on the production of the famous tokaj. In 2013, the EU decided in favour of neither party, as this wine could be called Tokaj in both Slovakia and Hungary.

In addition to vodkas, Slovaks produce a gin-like alcohol called borovička, flavoured with juniper berries, as well as silvovica, a plum brandy often made at home. There are all possible variants: režná (grape), hruškovica (pear), jablkovica (apple), marhuľovica (apricot) and čerešňovica (cherry). The rarest and most precious palenka is distilled from ripe wild berries such as raspberries, blueberries and cranberries. Drienkovica

is made from the berries of wild dogwood, a tree that grows in Europe and the Middle East. It was the favourite alcohol of Slovak President Rudolf Schuster. Local soft drinks include kofola, a caffeinated soda that is a favourite drink of children and teenagers and competes with Coca-Cola®. This beverage has a special taste that is reminiscent of licorice, you either like it or you don't, you have to try it. It is served in bars, on draught.