Darko Horvat

“Life, food, everything changed.”

Podgradje, Slovenia, 2025

In this interview for the Roma Soul Food project, Darko Horvat reflects on a modest childhood in a Roma settlement, where food was simple, limited and based on whatever the family could access, with dishes such as goulash, segedin goulash, dough-based meals and occasional meat. He recalls traditional home remedies, such as potatoes, vinegar and spruce tea for fever or illness, and contrasts the scarcity of the past with today’s greater availability of food. Even after moving to Austria and later returning to Slovenia, he continued to cook traditional Roma dishes such as red macaroni, kotlovska pogača, goulash and segedin goulash, emphasising that this knowledge came from his mother. The interview highlights Roma cuisine as a living tradition shaped by modesty, memory, home cooking and the wish for younger generations to keep these dishes alive.

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Original language: Slovene/Romani