Slovak Traditions

The Intricate Art of Straw-decorated Easter Eggs

Slovak straw-decorated Easter eggs

When I was in Canada, decorated Easter eggs meant pysanky, the Ukrainian art of wax-resist coloured eggs which results in beautiful and intricately patterned eggs. My first year of college, my friends and I spent hours doing pysanky over the Easter break.

When I came to Slovakia, I realized that there were many more traditional methods of decorating eggs here, including drawing with wax, cutting the egg shell, etching, and decorating with straw.

I first saw the straw method a number of years ago at a local spring fair. Pani Sitarova sat at a small table, gluing minuscule pieces onto an egg. I marveled over her patience working with such small pieces. This year, I asked her to show me the process, and marveled even more.  Click to continue reading

Vianočné oplátky: making Christmas wafers

A woman holds oplatky, also called oblatky, as she makes them

A necessary part of Christmas for most Slovaks is the thin crisp wafer served at the Christmas Eve meal, oplátky or oblátky, depending on the dialect. Some thin wafers are sold as ‘cakes’ layered together with a sweet filling at spas all year round, but the Christmas wafers are a little different. (More about Slovak Christmas.)

I’ve been trying to get into Slovak kitchens for some time now, to publish their cooking and baking secrets for the world to know. (If you know someone willing for me to come over with a camera, send me an email!) I finally invited myself over to learn how to make oplátky from a lady who makes them in my town.  Click to continue reading

Heľpa Folk Festival: beautiful beautiful textiles

Putting gulky into the water

This weekend I was so fortunate as to visit two folk festivals. As I took about a million photos at each one, I’ll divide them into two posts.

Heľpa has held a festival for the past 52 years, Horehronské dni spevu a tanca, the region Horehronie days of singing and dancing. It was a wealth of folk costumes and, this year, textile arts.

I was looking forward to the trip, to take as many pictures as I wanted without running after kids or hurrying up for bored companions. On Saturday, I woke up before the crack of dawn to get an early train, and met a friend on the way to HeľpaClick to continue reading

Exciting news, winter wonderland, carnival festivities and other bits

Male Karpaty in Slovakia - Almost Bananas blog

Every week I plan to write here on the blog, and most weeks time goes by faster than I can catch it. Things have been busy here because, as I announced on Facebook…I’m writing an ebook!

It will be an ecookbook about Slovak soups and stews, full of bowls of comfort and notes about life in Slovakia. We’ve been eating a lot of soups and stews lately. As a cook, I don’t mind because they are easy to throw together. And my kids haven’t complained yet.

I’ve set the launch date as March 13…soon!

If are on Facebook, follow my Almost Bananas Facebook page and click ‘all posts’ under notifications. I’ll be sharing bits of the book as it is coming together and asking for your input. Here’s a Facebook video of me behind the scenes, complete with twin “helpers”. If you aren’t on Facebook,  you can see the video here.

To catch up on 2017, I’ve got mostly a pile of photos to share.  Click to continue reading

Orešanský Rínek: a fall celebration

Slovak traditional costumes - Almost Bananas blog

A while back a town nearby, Horné Orešany, had a “rinek”, which involved music, dancing, and lots of food.

There are a number of different types of celebrations in the fall, for example, vinobranie celebrates wine. While considerably bigger, the Trnava jarmok is similar to the rinek. Friends tell me that ‘rinek’ and ‘jarmok’ are mostly just dialect differences. Rinek comes from ‘ring-kruh’, both German and Slovak for circle, because tables were placed in a circle as they sold their wares, while jarmok comes from ‘jahr markt’, yearly market in German.

Play of a traditional Slovak wedding - Almost Bananas blog

This year’s rinek had a wedding theme. The entertainment consisted of a play in which the music and dance acts were incorporated. Above, a woman throws her hands up as a friend relates how useless her husband is in preparing for the wedding (if I recall correctly).  Click to continue reading

Winter Markets, Fog, and Misc. (Winter 2015/16 photos)

Winter in the Small Carpathians of Slovakia

Now that spring has finally come, at least to my town, I’m finally posting photos from the winter. I blame it on my family genes, always late for everything.

November begins with one of my favourite traditions, visiting the graveyards and honouring the dead. I can’t even come close to capturing the atmosphere. I’ve written about it before: Nov. 1, All Saints Day

All Saints Day in Slovakia

All Saints Day in Slovakia

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Fašiangy: Slovak Carnival is a party time

Fasiangy: Slovak Carnival is time to party

Leftover from observance of Christian seasons, fašiangy is the time between the end of the Christmas season (January 6) and the beginning of Lent. Basically, it’s party time. It’s the time to indulge in rich foods and have fun before the austerity of Lent. This year, we went to a folklore zabava, a family dance in folklore style that was amazing (read on for a picture of me in kroj below).

For children, one day towards the end of the season is designated for dressing up in costumes, usually at school or pre-school. Slovak kids (including my own) don’t know much about Halloween but get excited for to dress up for Karnival.

For adults, fašiangy marks the ball season. Formal dances are planned in smaller towns and cities alike, attended by men in suit and tie and women in uber fancy dresses. Slovaks dance into the not-so-wee hours of the morning, to live or DJed music. There are certain songs that are played every time, that everybody loves and sings along to. Most of them are hits from the 70’s and 80’s. There are usually at least two meals, plus snacks (read here for how much food a Slovak party must have).

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Traditions: finding the balance between the past and the future (October 2015 photos)

Are traditions your garbage or your treasure? - Almost Bananas

As any reader of my blog will know, I’m a big fan of keeping traditions alive, whether a village, song and dance, or lighting candles in the night. So many people, however, seem to take these traditions for granted or consider them as unimportant.

I was taking pictures in the old shed behind my inlaws’, grinning that they would not understand my fascination. A shed of old junk, to them.

Treasures in an old shed - Almost Bananas

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Hody: the modern take on a religious medieval festival

Every town in Slovakia has 'hody'. Here's the modern take on a medieval festival - Almost Bananas

Every town, every church in fact, in Slovakia has a festival called ‘hody’. Each church is named/dedicated to a particular saint or feast, and when that annual feast day rolls around it’s party time. The consecration of the church coincided with finishing the building, so hody feasts are in the warmer month and full of food and fun. In my parents in law’s village, hody is in the fall and usually coincides with Jarmok in Trnava.

In the Catholic Church, if you attend Mass on the feast of the consecration of a church (as well as meeting a few other criteria) the person receives a plenary indulgence (in simple terms, related to the eternal state of your soul, so it’s important).

Traditionally, when it was hody in your parish, you invited extended family to come and gain eternal advantages. And then you had to feed said friends and family, so you prepare a feast.

And when there are all these extra people in a town, it’s a great time to sell things and go on carnival rides.

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June 2015 Photos

I’m starting a new series with photos from the month that didn’t warrant a whole post but that I wanted to share anyway. I’ve shared some on Instagram but my new phone requires more work to put up a big camera photo, and therefore I get them up less.

This month I actually have photos since the end of April, so there are some spring ones in there as well.

Gaming, Austria
Sunrise on the former monastery in Gaming, Austria.

Mystery Flower
Despite looking like lilacs, these lilac coloured flowers were growing singly in my sister in law’s lawn. I have no idea what they are, but I saved them from the lawnmower.

Spring Leaves

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