A new age education project that has been going on for nine years in the entire country of Slovenia, and whose main actors are Primary School pupils. Their main task is to explore the forgotten culinary heritage of their region with cultural background and to adapt the dishes to today’s body needs. They are motivated to use healthy, seasonal ingredients from the surroundings (short chains) and to learn about the reasons of using that in the kitchen (what to eat when and why), to cook at home and minimize food waste.

The main project mission is to encouraging children to a healthy and sustainable - responsible way of life.

The project has grown into a movement to encouraging children to become proud and to respect their own culinary history, to change their tastes, to create a desire to upgrade knowledge about the production of local food, also autochthonous or forgotten varieties. The project connects different segments of knowledge, skills, or abilities. By preparing traditional meals in school kitchens, we achieve strong motivation for the adolescent generation.

  • Five kids, dressed in aprons and cooking hats, standing behind a kitchen counter, stirring an orange batter in two large silver bowls. Children discover the wealth of local and regional flavours in Slovenia. Photo: Kuhna pa to archives
  • A row of contestants, wearing orange aprons and white hats, cooking behind a counter, and Janez Bogataj on the other side of the counter, looking at evaluation sheets. Dr Janez Bogataj is one of the world’s foremost experts on Slovenian ethnology and he is also fan of the project for many years. He is involved in many competitions. Photo: Kuhna pa to archives
  • Three children in red aprons and white cooking hats are stirring mashed potato in a silver bowl on the stove. One of the main purposes of this project is to motivate children in primary schools to learn about regional food "Grandma`s Kitchen. Photo: Kuhna pa to archives
  • A crowd of kids tasting and looking at the dishes that are diplayed on the table. Behind the table are the young contestants in red aprons and white hats. There`s a lot of interest for this project everywhere. Photo: Kuhna pa to archives

At the National level, the project is important for the main areas: Health, Local food, Education, Employment, Tourism and Social ties.

Based on the recipes, procedures and stories written by our nutritional cultural heritage, and which children have placed between us through intergenerational communication, a cookbook is published after each annual project.

Project is supported by Ministry of Health and is a part of the National program "Dober tek Slovenija". In September, 2018, the European Commission - DG SANTE identified the project as one of the 10 Best Practices in the field of healthy and a sustainable lifestyle in relation to food.