Potica is considered to be the Slovenia national dish. While this leavened sweet bread with filling is known in many parts of Central Europe under various names and slight variations in how it is made, Andreja Vezovnik from the University of Ljubljana and I explored in this article how it became a symbol of national identity in Slovenia, especially after independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.
We show how “[b]eing positioned as a traditional dish, potica consequentially became the centre of discourses promoting traditionalized approaches to gender, family, and society, bringing forward premodern conceptions of femininity. Its positioning as the national dish strongly influenced the reinvention of the Slovene woman who was suddenly invited to imitate the practices of her peasant (great) grandmother from the rural parts of the country, catering and providing for her family in the way traditional gender roles would define it.” Vezovnik and Tominc (2019: 49)
Posta Slovenije issued potica on stamps on several occasions
Ana Tominc 