Balaska O’Donoghue: Bulgaria, Cork City, Food, Music, Slovakia, Travel, Celebrations

Balaska O’Donoghue: Bulgaria, Cork City, Food, Music, Slovakia, Travel, Celebrations

Life History: Cork: Ireland: Slovakia; Bulgaria

Balaska grew up in the central city area of Kosice , Slovakia until she was 19. Her father was Bulgarian and her mother Slovakian. She has one-half brother. She came to Cork because she met a Cork man whilst visiting London. She spent a lot of time as a child with her grandmother in Bulgaria.

She was an independent child. Her mother was often sick. In the era of communism, they would go to after school to do their homework.
The family had a lot of holidays, going to spas and skiing in the winter. In Bulgaria on holiday she was exposed to many different nationalities.
There were no church weddings. They took place in a registry office. The bride wore white during the day and changed into red in the middle of the evening.
Balaska describes traditional Slovakian food. They ate diced beef and a type of sour cabbage with dumplings. She mentions a cheese called Binza and a poppy seed dessert. The ate fish on Christmas Eve.
She describes spending three months with her grandmother in Bulgaria where she learned the language. Half of the village where her father was from married foreigners so the children who visited were half Bulgarian and half other nationalities.
Balaska came to Cork because she met a Cork man in London. Her first observations of Cork were how colourful the houses were. When she came first it rained every day for two months. She loved how small Cork was as a city and the people were very friendly.
Since she came to Cork it has become more international. There are more people with darker skin.

Note; This interview was conducted as part of the Cork 2005 Project

28 September 2004

CFP_SR00339_odonoghue_2004

Cork; Ireland; Slovakia; Bulgaria; 1990s -2000s;

Cork 2005 Collection Catalogue Numbers:

CFP_SR00329_mccarthy_2004;
CFP_SR00330_odriscoll_2004;
CFP_SR00331_claffey_2004;
CFP_SR00332_hanover_2004;
CFP_SR00333_desplanques_2004;
CFP_SR00334_bale_2004;
CFP_SR00335_sheridan_1996;
CFP_SR00336_steiner-scott_2004;
CFP_SR00337_rot_2004;
CFP_SR00338_stafford_2004;
CFP_SR00340_hawkins_2004;
CFP_SR00341_ocarroll_2004;
CFP_SR00342_ikebuasi_2004;
CFP_SR00343_ogeallabhain_2004;
CFP_SR00344_geaney_2004;
CFP_SR00345_wulff_2004;
CFP_SR00346_abdoulbaneeva_2004;
CFP_SR00347_gunes_2004;
CFP_SR00348_fourie_2004;
CFP_SR00349_henderson_2004;
CFP_SR00350_valdman_2004;
CFP_SR00351_carmody_2004;
CFP_SR00352_osullivan_2004;
CFP_SR00353_mahknanov_2004;
CFP_SR00354_oflynn_2004;
CFP_SR00355_akhter_2004;
CFP_SR00356_walker_2004;
CFP_SR00357_kelleher_2004;
CFP_SR00358_manresa_2004;
CFP_SR00359_wimpenny_2005;
CFP_SR00360_skotarczak_2005;
CFP_SR00361_vermeulen_2005;
CFP_SR00362_owen_2005;
CFP_SR00363_dsouza_2005;
CFP_SR00364_setter_2005;
CFP_SR00365_obrien_2005;
CFP_SR00366_botan_2005:

Published Material:
‘How’s it Goin’, Boy? radio series (six thirty-minute episodes, broadcast 2005 and available on the Cork Folklore Project website)

O'Carroll, Clíona for the Cork Northside Folklore Project (2006) How's it goin', boy? Dublin: Nonsuch Publishing.

Cork Folklore Project Audio Archive

English

Sound

1 .wav File

43m 08s

Cork City, Cork Ireland

MiniDisc

16bit / 44.1kHz

The following is a short extract from the interview transcript, copyright of the Cork Folklore Project. If you wish to access further archival material please contact CFP, folklorearchive@gmail.com

M O'D: Em could you describe maybe some kind of a family celebration that would be kind of a I don't know, it could be a wedding it could be a funeral, it could be whatever, a typical celebration?

B O D: Yeah well wedding for example, how would I describe it? Church weddings didn't really happen! As far as all the weddings in Slovakia, I didn't go to church wedding. Well that's probably because the way it was, registry office, out to the wedding, the same you have your white clothes, you have to have your red clothes in the middle of the night, you the bride has to change to red clothes, and she'll be dancing for another while, and they don't go on honeymoon until next morning, so that's the only difference probably in this em traditional folk, polka, and this kind of clarinet or how do you call them those breathing instruments. . .

M O'D: Clarinet, tuba, saxophone, trumpets?

B O D: Trumpets, that's it yeah that would be there, loads of button accordions, harmonicas, yeah traditional folk, that would be the wedding just going on for about a day, not like Irish weddings: they can go on forever. (Laughs).

M O'D: So would there be a lot of dancing at the weddings?

B O D: Mm, loads of dancing, yeah, loads of drinking, loads of food yeah!

M O'D: Could you tell me about the food? What kind of food?

B O D: What would you have? We would have the traditional food would be em its kind of a beef, and its kind of white cabbage cooked, and you get your dumplings with it, and you get your dumplings yeah, your white cabbage, and your beef, it's kind of diced beef, and the cabbages em well not sour how will I say it? It just has a distinctive taste, it's sweet and sour more beer taste out of it, yeah, I don't know what to compare it to, in here, white cabbage like from coleslaw, something like that. That's the traditional food, then you would have your pork chop kind of thing with potatoes and vegetables of the day, whatever it is, and the most traditional food which is not served at weddings would be again special cheese with special bacon and home made dumplings - you can't get that cheese anywhere else: it's called Binza - and you just do your dumplings in the water and put that over with your bacon. And you drink kind of sour milk with it, which is made in the mountains by all the shepherds and they are supposed to be very strong from it. Em it's kind of sour milk as well, more like natural yoghurt or something, yeah so that's the traditional food totally different, veg, brown and white bread and the rolls. Yeah a little bit similar but not the same. Desserts, desserts are lovely! Desserts, there's a poppy seed cake that's my favourite and we eat that for Christmas as well, poppy seed dumplings I would call them, or sweet dumplings with poppy seed. Beautiful. Yeah that's the food in Bulgaria. Eat fish for Christmas then (we don't eat meat) we celebrate on Christmas Eve, can't eat meat so we eat the fish, and then, with your potato or potato salad whatever you prefer. The big day is then when we can eat is the twenty fifth and sixth, as everywhere else we just stuff ourselves and go with the families. Yeah that's the Slovakian way of putting it!