Sunday, May 31, 2009 Museum Kebl (in Slatina)
Just up the road from the house where I watched the Koline (the ritual conversion of one big fat pig into many big fat meals—more on that later!), is a little museum honoring the old ways of Slovenia. It’s simply a house that’s been converted, with a variety of traditional accoutrements, into a testament of the way things were. There’s an album of old photographs in the bedroom, which houses a surprisingly short and narrow bed with the probably necessary inclusion of a raised edge so as you can’t roll off the bed onto the cold stone floor in the middle of the stone cold night. The windows are small, designed to allow a maximum of heat retention, with the obvious disadvantage of allowing a minimum of natural light insertion. Oil candles and old paintings adorn the walls.
A surprisingly small bedThe kitchen features a wood burning stove, which is still commonly found in older homes today—but now in conjunction with a modern gas or electric oven. The heat from the fire warms the stove-top, the ovens and the room. Temperature control is limited by sluices that guide the heat to each segment, and by simply knowing your cooking surface—knowing the cold from the hot spots, so you slide the pan around the stove-top as you need more or less heat. The kitchen table featured an interesting addition I think would be welcome in most comes today—a deep “drawer” that was meant for the baby to lay in. Imagine that… you go into the kitchen to prepare dinner, pull out the kitchen drawer and plop the little tyke in. Brilliant!