Mid-afternoon Snack (Olovrant)

Ingredients: bread rolls, butter, honey, jam, hot chocolate
Prep Time: 2 minutes

You can use the freshly baked rolls (čerstvé rožky) anywhere you would use regular bread. They go great with soups, spreads, and you can even turn them into a butter and cheese sandwich. Another of my favorites is to top them with butter and honey or jam, and make a quick mid-afternoon snack. Such a mid-afternoon meal is called olovrant in Slovak.

I feel almost silly posting this simple dish, but then, it shows some differences between Slovak and American cuisines. In Slovakia, we don’t have peanut butter. Or at least, there didn’t use to be peanut butter when I was growing up. It may be more common now, but the nut spread of choice is still Nutella. Jam is spread on regular butter. Although I very much like peanut butter, I don’t like to mix it with jam. The result is too sweet, in my opinion. Instead, I keep using regular unsalted butter, following the tradition I was raised on. Another very popular combination in Slovakia is butter with honey. Honey is also often squirted into warm milk to make a sweet, comforting drink.

Slice the rolls in half, spread on butter (maslo) and top with raspberry jam (malinový lekvár) or honey (med). Add a cup of hot chocolate (kakao) and you got yourself a little taste of paradise.

Speaking of honey, there is a great article on Martin Votruba’s University of Pittsburgh Slovak Studies page about the origin of the word medveď (meaning bear).