Slovakia

A clear Slovak spirit distilled or flavored with juniper berries, drunk neat as a digestif.

Slovak cured and smoked pork spare ribs slow-cooked until fall-from-the-bone tender, served canonically with braised sauerkraut and dark bread.

Soft, irregularly shaped potato-flour dumplings tossed while hot with pungent Slovak sheep's-milk bryndza cheese and finished with rendered smoked pork and its drippings.

A Slovak national dish of boiled half-moon dumplings made from unleavened wheat dough and filled with a mixture of mashed potato and bryndza (Slovak sheep's milk cheese), served topped with sour cream and traditionally garnished with fried bacon and onion.

A boldly garlicked Slovak broth soup — whole or crushed garlic simmered in meat stock with marjoram and caraway, finished with croutons and a gratinéed cap of melting cheese, traditionally eaten as a restorative after a night of drinking.

A hearty Slovak bean soup of beans simmered with smoked meat and root vegetables, often finished with soured cream.

A slow-braised beef and onion stew, deeply colored and flavored with sweet paprika, yielding a thick glossy sauce traditionally served with knedlíky (bread dumplings).

A slow-simmered Slovak sauerkraut soup built on a base of fermented cabbage, smoked pork ribs, smoked sausage, and dried mushrooms, yielding a deeply smoky, sour, and earthy broth traditionally served at Christmas Eve and New Year's feasts.

Thin Slovak potato flatbreads made from a cooked-potato-and-flour dough, griddled dry and eaten plain or with sweet or savory fillings.

Spiced honey-sweetened gingerbread biscuits, rolled and cut into shapes, baked firm then often iced and decorated as Christmas gifts.

A Central European festive plate of roast duck served with braised red cabbage and bread or potato dumplings.

A Slovak breaded and pan-fried cutlet of pounded pork or chicken — the everyday schnitzel of the Slovak table.

A clear, double-distilled fruit brandy made from fermented plums, regarded as a national spirit across Central Europe and the Balkans.

A Slovak strudel of paper-thin stretched dough rolled around a sweet filling of poppy seed, walnut, or spiced apple, then baked into a coiled log.

Šúľance s makom is a Slovak dish of small hand-rolled potato-dough rolls (finger-shaped noodles) tossed in melted butter and coated with sweetened ground poppy seed.

A Central European feast dish of braised beef sirloin served in a smooth, slightly sweet-sour cream sauce of pureed root vegetables, with bread dumplings and a spoon of cranberry.

A traditional Slovak pig-slaughter feast platter of fresh pork products — blood sausage, liver-and-rice sausage (jaternice), head cheese (tlačenka) and fried liver — eaten the day the pig is butchered.

Crispy pan-fried Slovak pancakes of grated raw potato bound with egg and flour, seasoned heavily with garlic and marjoram.