EN
Down to content
How can one best summarise the taste of Slovenia's Alps?  Natural! You can try traditional Gorenjskan fare in small inns, restaurants or on the farm, many of which welcome tourists. In this land where people still live in close proximity and in symbiosis with nature, food is prepared according to custom using naturally grown ingredients.

So, feel free to indulge in the culinary delights of Gorenjska.

Milk, cheese and porridge

Dishes typical to the diet of Alpine herdsmen pertain to milk and cheese, and include traditional specialities such as masovnek (made from flour and sour cream) and the sharp-flavoured semi-soft mohant cheese from Bohinj.

Milk with corn (maize meal), buckwheat, potato or wheat porridge, dressed with minced lard, pork crackling, breadcrumbs or eggs was also a traditional staple of upland farmers.

Krapi and game

In the upper you should try exquisite dough pockets filled with polenta, cottage cheese or dried fruit, which are known locally as Rateški, Podkorenški and Kocovi krapi. Millet or buckwheat porridge, boiled Gorenjska-style štruklji (made from dough, traditionally with a diverse range of sweet or savoury fillings; they were once a characteristic festive or ceremonial dish, the best known of which are tarragon, cottage cheese, walnut, apple and poppy seed), and memorable buckwheat krapi, are often served with game dishes. And speaking of game, in Alpine regions you might even be fortunate enough to be offered chamois soup!

Meat dishes

The trade-mark Carniolan speciality, kranjska klobasa (Kranj sausage), enjoys particular fame among Slovenian meat products. You should also try mavžlje or maželjne - baked meatballs enveloped in caul fat. The winter menu includes pečenice (fried sausages) and krvavice (black pudding); indeed, all of these dishes derive the age-old tradition of koline – pig slaughtering – a rite which helped rural communities survive the winter months. Another speciality is gorenjska prata or budl, a loaf stuffed with smoked meat and bread. In the Tržič district they make delicious bržola, a stew prepared with lamb and vegetables which was originally a herdsmen’s dish.

Potato and side dishes

The vast potato fields in the Šenčur area also spawned a number of potato dishes, such as govnač which is comprised of chopped potato and cabbage; cabbage, particularly in the form of sauerkraut, is also a staple commonly served with sausages as well as a number of other dishes. In Šenčur, potato is combined with godla, a traditional winter black-pudding soup made from blood, millet porridge and barley.

Porridge and meal

Danka (pork stomach) with millet porridge, and mushrooms with buckwheat porridge are traditionally very popular in the region, and are served with a sweet or savoury omelette known as Jurjeva kapa. Loška smojka - turnip stuffed with millet porridge - is served as a side dish.

Honey and confectionary

In addition to the use of honey as a beverage (such as mead), and the medicinal properties of various honey products, the tradition of beekeeping in Gorenjska has engendered many foods which make use of honey as an ingredient; it is used in a variety of honey breads traditional to the Škofja Loka district which encompass the famous lect confectionary. Bled, meanwhile, is most proud of its renowned kremšnita cream slice.

Culinary delights

The region’s traditional dishes and delicacies may be enjoyed at local inns as well as a number of farms that cater for tourist visitors. You may also follow the Cheese Trail which, in the footsteps of herdsmen, leads up into the alpine pastures above Lake Bohinj.
Taste Gorenjska (3.95 MB)