Slovenia’s Meat Obession (and other tasty things)

Slovenia is awfully proud of its cold cuts. Any normal functioning restaurant there will have locally made salami, sausage, cured ribbon, and cubed lard for an appetizer - hypertension and congestive heart failure be damned! The more generous ones will include a variety of local cheese, fruit, and nuts, though any Slovenian will tell you that their meat plates are so good, they should stand on their own. Paired with beer, of course. TasteSlovenia.si, a tourist centric site, has a scroll-heavy page dedicated solely to the ways of the sausage; how the sausage is made, where its made, and why your life has no meaning until you’ve sausaged the Slovenian way.

Meat is clearly, a big and meaningful identifier to culture in many countries. I enjoy cured meaty medallions as much as the next person, but after a while cold cuts, no matter where it is, seem to taste the same. Like any post-Soviet country I've been to, Kazakhstan is a sausage loving nation. Our grocery app has SO MANY options like halal, boiled halal, smoked halal, regular boiled, regular smoked, regular half-smoked, whole, cut, hot-dogged, chicken, beef, pork, horse... all available on demand.

I’m low-key annoyed that Slovenia is missing a huge bragging point on its hamburger making. An old blog post mentioned the restaurant Foksner in Bohinj, famous for its burgers, and this time we planned our road trip around eating there again, they are that good. The country nails beef quality. Even better, during the vacation we found two other joints that were on par, if not better than Foksner: Bar Under the Bridge (Bar Pod Mostom) a popup bar and grill on the Soci River and Come Back Burger in Trzic have burgers worthy of going out of your way for. Slovene mince is divine, without filler. Steak around the country is good too, but their burgers have ruined all others for me.

We ate and drank our way through this trip, showing my parents the summery side of Slovenia since they had only visited in winter. Though having been retired in Colorado for about a decade, they still talk about moving overseas for their official official retirement, so this trip was our hard sell, seeing as it’s where Mark and I would like to end up too. Winter half convinced them already, summer could actually seal the deal! Our days were filled with cave exploration, gorge hiking, waterfall viewing, swimming, and winery visits to tasting varietals like Barbera (venous red), Zelen (spicy fresh), or Malvasia (tart but tame) grapes. We tasted orange wine. It's not for everyone and no thank you.

We crossed into Cormons, Italy for a few days for Friulano and Ribolla whites where, throw a rock in any direction and you’ll hit a winery. They too, have their world class cold cut prosciutto, supposedly due to the region's mix of Adriatic breeze and Carnic mountain winds. I would have loved to experience either of those because the sweltering, unmoving heat just layered itself on top of us to the point where our bodies left crime scene sweat outlines on the tiled floors. On the plus side, we did eat magical 8-cheese pizza, enjoyed a 6-course cheese tasting, and got heartburn from eating so much frico (a hot cheese potato dish). I'd be seriously worried about my cholesterol if it weren't for an upcoming 300km bike ride across Slovenian and Austrian mountains.

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Burger with a view (Most Na Soci) 

Lepa Vida - with labels containing homages to the female form

orange = nope

Pregaming with seafood in Piran, Slovenia