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My projects
Over the years of my work in the field of culinary heritage, I have been involved in various projects. I will describe only a few of the larger ones. It started in 2014 with the organisation of an event about 2,000 years of nutrition in Ljubljana as part of Emona 2000 project, which we prepared with colleagues at our school - BIC Ljubljana. In 2016 I spent a week with my colleagues from the Group Stik in Norway as a Slavic woman among the Vikings, where I prepared Old Slavic dishes for our team. On an interesting week-long vacation, I met Daniel Serra, a culinary archaeologist, and Kari Marie Helland, a researcher of the Scandinavian Iron Age, Viking, and medieval diet. Soon after that, my journey took me to Denmark, where, together with Kari, I spent a week cooking for the knights tournament. Recently, however, I have organised e.g. also a medieval dinner with Darja Pirš from Vratarnica and Gostilnica pri Podkvi in Kamnik, catering with ancient Roman dishes in collaboration with KD Vespesjan and many other interesting things. Last year I spent most of the year in Denmark in Middelaldercenter Nykøbing Falster, where I ran the kitchen in a medieval restaurant Den Gyldne Svane, prepared menus and built on recipes preserved from England, Germany, France and Denmark from the 15th century. Together with the PR department, I also took care of the overall graphic image of the restaurant.
PALAEO DIVERSI STYRIA PROJECT
In 2018 and 2019, I participated in the Palaeo Diversi Styria project - a project about the paleolandscape of Austrian and Slovenian Styria and its diversity from prehistoric times to modern times. My contribution to the project was the preparation of menus for different historical periods and to help implement the menus into the offer of catering and restaurant service providers in Styria. The dishes are being successfully offered by the Tourist and Ecological Farm Pri Baronu, and the project resulted in the new brand Heriterra.
PROJECT AJDI
In 2021 and 2022, we worked with Group Stik on the Project Ajdi (or longer stories about Ajdi from Posavje), where the aim was to address the environmental challenges of the LAS Posavje area: they managed to connect locations of natural values with archaeological heritage of Posavje, raised awareness and strengthened positive attitude towards their environment. They increased the value of archaeological sites of Posavje, which are accompanied by the adjective "ajdovski" in the title (Ajdovska jama, Ajdovski Gradec, Ajdov grob...). My contribution was the preparation of menus for different historical periods, which are now in use by Restaurant Ajda in Sevnica.
ARCHEO GARDEN
The archeological garden is a project we undertook with my colleague Manca Vinazza and students of Archaeology behind the building of Department of Archaeology in Ljubljana. The idea for it was born in 2021, and the garden is organised in such a way that plants, that grow in it, are partly divided by different historical periods. Since we wanted to be as authentic as possible in the selection of plants, we contacted Ignac Janžekovič from the Botanical Garden of the University of Maribor, as they keep in their seed collection old varieties of cereals that were grown for the purposes of the Paleogarden within of the Palaeo Diversi Styria project. The care for the garden was soon completely taken over by archeology students and now they are in their second year of successfully growing and learning about plants and their process of use as well.
media about us
''For Polona Janežič, who studied archeology and then culinary arts at BIC Ljubljana, this must really be a dream job. She is a cook at the Den Gyldne Svane restaurant. They didn't know chefs at that time, because the pub is working - in the Middle Ages. This is a story from an island in the south of Denmark, where the Middelaldercentret open-air museum operates in Nykøbing Falster.
Polona Janežič is the chef at the Den Gyldne Svane museum restaurant; her task is preparing the menus, which are experimental archeology in their own way, recreating food that was eaten in the distant past - but in a way that even the eater of the 21st century is ready to accept. Polona is also a creator, who can be found on Instagram under the name Obujeni okusi: excellent recipes, beautiful pictures, an unusual passion for food and, it seems, for old dishes and techniques. What an adventure this all is! (author of the text: Krina Cunder) -link to full interview