After a quick trip to the Slovenian Consulate in Cleveland with a student to obtain a visa for our trip, I’m tempted to say that this Principia Abroad is all about my love of potica (that’s po-teet-sa, rhymes with pizza).
Why Cleveland? What’s potica? Where’s Slovenia? All good questions.
Cleveland, Ohio, has the largest number of Slovenians outside of the country of Slovenia, which has just about 2 million people. So instead of the closest consulate to Principia College being in Chicago with most of the other consulates, this one is in Cleveland.
I grew up in Cleveland, and since that was before Slovenia became an independent country in June 1991 (and since I was doing kid and teenage stuff), I didn’t know about this part of the Slovenian diaspora—though I did know that I had friends of Polish, Armenian, and Irish descent. I might have met someone from Yugoslavia. At least I knew there were immigrants in Cleveland. So Slovenia→Cleveland→Potica for me.
Potica? Well, one breakfast item my mom picked up at Heinen’s market was poppy potica, which we pronounced “pa-ti-ka.” I liked it. The way the cakey bread was rolled up with a sweet poppyseed layer in a way that looked like a giant squashed Ho-Ho was one selling point. Plus, it tasted good. But after I went to college and moved away, I never saw it again. And I didn’t think about it again until 2012 when I stumbled across it in a bakery in Dubrovnik, Croatia. By then I did know a little about the Slovenians in Cleveland. (For those who don’t know, both Slovenia and Croatia, neighbors in Central Europe, were states in the former Yugoslavia. They share some cultural heritage, including food, but each has a quite distinct culture.)
At this point my mission to reconcile my memory of potica, my new knowledge about Cleveland, and my ever-increasing knowledge of Slovenia was christened. And last May, when I was on a scouting trip in Ljubljana, Slovenia, at the Friday Open Market I bought two slabs (they came from a very big bunt-cake-shaped variety rather than the Ho-Ho kind) of poppy potica (makova potica) from a vendor. My friend and I savored it for three days, nibbling on it in the hotel room. I didn’t want it to end.
So on this trip to Cleveland, craving some potica, my student and I visited a new downtown location of Heinen’s where I picked up a $14 loaf of Grandma Ann’s Poppy Seed Bread. While I was a little disappointed that it was not Babica Ana’s Makova Potica, it satisfied my craving and will hopefully carry me back to Slovenia in May.
Ellen Sprague is leading the first Principia Abroad program to Slovenia, with a brief trip to Croatia as well, and teaching the course “Stories around the Globe,” which is focusing on Slovenian literature. Photos included are of her first purchase of potica in Slovenia and her first attempt at potica in her own kitchen.”