Slovenefest brings Slovenian food back to Strawberry Hill

It’s a difficult decision, but sometimes you just have to commit: Will it be polnjene paprike for dinner or sarma?

At Saturday’s sixth annual Slovenefest in Kansas City, Kansas, the choice will be easy. You can get one or the other or do what I’m planning to do and splurge and have both the polnjene paprike (stuffed peppers) and the sarma, traditional stuffed cabbage rolls served with sauerkraut. The dinner plates cost $12 each, but they’re generous portions of the main dishes, sided with Slovenian smoked sausage, potato salad, green beans, bread and butter and a choice of coffee, tea, or lemonade. Slovenian blood sausage is a dollar extra.

The festival — celebrating this historic neighborhood’s roots as the Kansas City home of immigrants from Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Russia in the first half of the 20th century — will be held this Saturday, September 27, from 5 to 10 p.m. on the grounds of the Holy Family Catholic Church at 513 Ohio in Kansas City, Kansas.

Once a close-knit Croatian community, the Slovenian neighbors in Strawberry Hill were part of the extended family, according to Carol Dragosh McCarty, a volunteer at this year’s Slovenefest.

“Slovenia used to be part of Croatia,” McCarty says. “In this neighborhood, we have close relationships.”

The Slovenian history is a good deal more complicated than that, not achieving full independence from Tito’s Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia until the 1990s. 

“Our cuisines, Croatia and Slovenia, are very similar,” McCarty says.

It’s a heavy cuisine and fattening — think of those sausages! — but it’s a one-day festival, so get over it. For patrons of the festival who want something more familiar, they’ll be serving hot dogs and burgers outside, near the games and music. Desserts cost extra, but at a buck each, the apple strudel is still a bargain.