Global Slovakia partners with The Slovak Spectator Read Full Article on The Slovak Spectator |
|---|
Making koláče was not a secular tradition. At the heart of this whirl of walnuts and sweet dough lived prayers.
By Edward Monovich
"My Slovak heritage, embodied by the family kitchen in Brownsville, compels me to this day." (Source: Courtesy of E. M.)
Edward Monovich grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He received his MFA from the University of Texas at Austin and his BA in biology from Kalamazoo College. Edward is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in Boston. His works combine performance art, drawing, ecology and folklore. His interactive projects have exhibited in Europe, Central America and throughout the US. Ancient cultural rituals and Slovak heritage provide key inspiration. Edward currently teaches Illustration at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston.
Edward Monovich's story is part of a Global Slovakia Project- Slovak Settlers, authored by Zuzana Palovic and Gabriela Bereghazyova. You can order the book here.
On a hillside near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, deep in coal-mining country, the view stuns me: my Slovak sanctuary burned to the ground. This is the former site of my paternal grandparents’ home, which is now in ruins. Eduard and Elena haven’t lived in this space since the 1990s, but the scene still shocks me. After a series of neglectful tenants and mysterious circumstances, only the charred foundation remains.
As I descend the hill, I instinctively count the irregular concrete steps that connect the street to the front door. They make a familiar, syncopated rhythm. When I arrive at what used to be my grandparent’s kitchen, my feet stand on their surprisingly well-maintained checkerboard floor. I have a sudden flashback; the alternating cream and rose-colored squares recall the rich smells of holúbky (stuffed cabbage rolls) and koláče (cakes) that met me upon arrival during previous visits.
Though the floor looks the same, everything else is gone. Without the walls and accoutrements, I can absorb the actual dimensions of the kitchen. It measures only 4 by 3 meters. Somehow, meticulously polished cabinets, a crystal light fixture, religious icons and impeccably organized rolling pins, pans, and utensils, had convinced me that the space was much bigger. From an emotional point of view, the space is enormous. It comprises the beating heart of my identity; a savory blend of religious mysticism, Slovak tradition, and familial closeness.
As a boy I was stunned to hear my father, while standing in that kitchen, spontaneously argue in an unfamiliar language. I had no idea that my dad even spoke Slovak! This was my first clue to a much bigger story lurking behind this unassuming space.
Sadly, I didn’t learn to speak Slovak. During my grandparents’ lives, conversing in their native tongue was severely frowned upon by most Americans. One’s status was influenced by their command of the English language. In my experience, this prejudicial point of view constitutes a profound weakness in America’s “melting pot” ideology. By forcibly stripping immigrants of their language, innumerable good ideas were lost. Furthermore, learning another ethnicity’s language nurtures empathy. It offers an antidote to the cultural warfare that currently plagues the United States. It remains a goal of mine to learn Slovak and to gain access to the subconscious river of poetry, songs, and oral histories of my ancestors.
An illustration by E. M.
Nevertheless, I did manage to pick up a few useful phrases over the years spent in my grandparents’ kitchen. On one occasion, I put this knowledge to good use for a secret mission. I recruited my best friends to play a joke on our least favorite elementary school teacher. Each day, we ran by her classroom during lunch and sent a special message…Slovak-style. Hustling by our nemesis’s door, we yelled in unison, “Ísť do pekla!” (“Go to hell!”). After the third episode, while sitting in our homeroom, we heard an authoritative knock on the door. It was our school principal. We were busted! He escorted our group to his office and punished us with one week of after-school detention. As the ringleader, I received extra days. Thankfully, he didn’t understand that we were actually cursing the teacher; otherwise, the penalty would have been stiffer. I never told my parents the real story behind the punishment.
More importantly, my grandparents’ kitchen provided spiritual nourishment. Around the holidays, and especially Easter, my grandmother cooked traditional Slovak food. My favorite of these recipes is a type of nut roll called koláč (orechovník). During the holidays, my grandmother would reserve several days to assemble a mountain of koláče. It was important to my family to have plenty of this dish on-hand, so that they could share it with visitors throughout the holiday season.
The nut roll was an excuse for connecting, for sitting together, and for sharing stories. With the importance of this ritual, it is not surprising that our family has guarded and carefully passed down the original recipe. Making and sharing koláče still centers our family today. Now, when we deliver nut rolls to our best friends, we call it sharing ‘Slovak magic’. We (jokingly) characterize our relationships, as they grow closer, as becoming ‘koláč-worthy’.
We work to find the perfect ratio of nuts to dough for nutrition, flavor, and aesthetic impact. Over the years, our family has pondered the nuances of this beloved dessert. We actively seek to distill the purist form from the scribbled notes in our ancestors’ cookbooks. Our recipe has more raisins than most, which I highly recommend. The perfect fresh yeast is essential. A koláč with too few nuts is deemed ‘stingy’ and will not make the cut. When we finish with rolling and rising, it is critical to apply the correct amount of egg wash to each koláč before baking, so they achieve an attractive, burnt-sienna shine. Like a fine baroque painting, we make sure that each nut roll attains a balanced composition.
My grandparents’ kitchen was also a chapel, a direct link to their faith. Making koláče was not a secular tradition. At the heart of this whirl of walnuts and sweet dough lived prayers. After baking, my grandfather neatly arranged cirak (Slovak Easter cheese), klobása (sausage), and koláče in a basket. He invited me to sculpt the butter into Easter-themed shapes before adding it to the mix. Grandpa carried this basket directly to the local cathedral for a blessing. Eating was not allowed until after sprinkling the food with holy water. For my grandfather, this constituted a festive occasion where he remembered the sacrifices of his ancestors and his current privileges.
As much as I love nut rolls, Grandpa’s gift of gratitude nourishes me even more. I still feel a tangible link between food and faith which stretches all the way from our ancestral basilica in Bardejov. In this way, our Slovak traditions connect my modern-day kitchen in Boston to my grandparents’ kitchen in Pennsylvania, and all the way to my great-grandparents’ kitchen in Slovakia. Making koláč is simultaneously time-travel and teleportation. Thanks to my grandpa, these are no abstract connections to me. He brought me along for his rituals. When we went to the cathedral, in addition to blessing the basket of food, Grandpa introduced me to his community which seemed enormous.
Grandpa was a popular guy. At the same church, he sang in the choir for 50 years and wove crosses from palm fronds that decorated the walls of his kitchen. I attribute my passion for art, to the rituals and aesthetics that were first experienced there. These cultural seeds grew inside of me. Now, I create paintings and performance art that welcome sacred elements into everyday life. I even incorporate ashes from my grandfather’s palm weavings into my paint.
Though I didn’t realize it at the time, space was extremely tight in the kitchen. This forced my grandparents to be creative. Even the surface for rolling koláče was retractable. When finished with the cooking, grandma would stow away her tools with the efficiency of a Murphy bed. My grandfather hand-washed, dried, and polished all the dishware, cabinets, and countertops. Each element was placed carefully on a tray and organized in the cabinets. Each utensil felt valued. Even though their efforts were disciplined, an easy-going vibe pervaded. Their process introduced me to mindfulness at an early age. Every step was equally appreciated. For Grandpa, washing dishes was part of the pleasure. After cleanup, the stainless-steel surfaces and glass cabinets shined.
An illustration by E. M.
The kitchen glowed, even though it was built into a hillside with little natural light. For me, the space was a magic grotto festooned with shimmering gemstones. Though meticulously organized, it never felt inaccessible. Nothing was off limits to me. This well-maintained little kitchen perfectly represented my grandparents’ worldview. They were grateful for their gifts and were eager to share them. I was readily welcomed to delight in all their wares, even though they were earned at a steep price, with blood and coal. I learned later that the bright light of my Slovak sanctuary existed in stark contrast to Grandpa’s dark and dangerous day job in the coal mines.
I am named after my grandfather, who was named after his father. Desperate poverty drove him to bring his young family to western Pennsylvania, in pursuit of new opportunities. They settled in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, in 1913, when my grandfather was just one year old. This decision is difficult to comprehend from my present-day vantage point of relative wealth and privilege. Soon after his emigration, my great-grandfather paid for his audacity with his life, deep in the coal mine.
With a reputation for nimbleness, he volunteered to be a brakeman, an extremely dangerous task. In the process of coupling or uncoupling, brakemen would stand between the sharp-edged, metal, coal cars while traveling at high speed. One slip, or error in timing meant death. Though the circumstances are unclear, an error during coupling led to my great-grandfather’s decapitation. In addition to their incomprehensible loss, my grandfather’s family also faced the painful stigma and superstition associated with such a terrible event. Grandpa never forgot chasing gawking children away from his father’s open casket, which revealed the nature of the incident.
At that time, the family lived in overpriced company housing, where the miners were essentially indentured servants. Their meager salaries were calculated to keep them slaves to their house payment and to the inflated prices of the company store. Amidst stifling poverty and fresh catastrophe, my great-grandmother, rifle in hand, defended the family from thieves who wished to profit from their misfortune.
Sadly, the coal mine stole even more from my family. While still a young man, my grandfather lost an eye during a mine collapse. This inspired him to get involved in union activism. When promoted to a leadership position, Grandpa received a commemorative clock from the president of the United Mine Workers Association. For all the years that I knew him, this clock was placed prominently on Grandpa’s dresser. It currently resides in my art studio. My passion for social justice finds its roots in Grandpa’s struggle to provide safe working conditions and fair compensation for his immigrant community.
Understandably, my grandpa never spoke much about the loss of his father, which was clearly a deep wound. The lasting stigma from this loss seemed to haunt and quiet my otherwise talkative grandpa. For such an open person, his silence on the matter made a salient contradiction. Though part of me wants to join in the generational silence, it is also important to share the miracle of my great-grandfather’s indelible love for his family. His love was formidable. It transcended death and fueled my grandpa to persevere, with overflowing love in his heart. As a result, my dad grew up a generous and happy man. I hope to pass on this family tradition to my children, to honor my great-grandfather’s sacrifice.
At a time when many struggle with generational trauma, I am blessed with an easy sense of appreciation that stems from the grounded, loving approach of my progenitors. Though blessed with my grandpa’s friendship well into my adulthood, I regret not pressing him for more details about his father. I would have liked to have understood the idiosyncrasies of the man that brought our family to America.
My Slovak heritage, embodied by the family kitchen in Brownsville, compels me to this day. Even though their sacred space was destroyed, I still see life through my ancestors’ lens. I share their appreciation for small moments, like the shine of a stainless-steel countertop or the spiral in a fresh walnut koláč. Their aesthetic commitments to culinary traditions and music inspired me to study art. My artwork draws from my family history and digs deeply into my personal psyche. It searches for ancient vestiges of wisdom that were erased by contemporary society and intercontinental migration. A current project seeks to recreate long-lost Slovak rituals with collaborators in the U.S. and Slovakia. In this way, the passions of my grandparents will manifest in new art that reunites me with my homeland.
Monovich Sacred Koláč(Recipe makes 3 koláče and 1 paska. The dough is the same for both recipes.) Ingredients: Dough:
(I usually make a double recipe of dough which makes 9 nut rolls and 1 loaf of paska. Keep in mind, nut rolls are better when shared and they go quickly). Walnut mixture: (This mixture will make 3 nut rolls. Remember to scale up the quantities when you make more-it’s always preferable to have extra walnut mixture, rather than too little.)
Making the dough:
Making the paska:
***** Important: Before eating, take nut roll and paska to church for blessing. Or, privately offer a message of gratitude. |
Team Global Slovakia
Comments