by Martin Janda

Czech lands, which occupy geographical position exactly in the middle of Europe, achieved a typical form of their national cuisine. Although the Czech cuisine has been influenced by foreign alimentary habits, it can offer everybody something that nobody can find in other cuisines. In the same way as our lands were divided into the regions, where people spoke different dialects, similar differences were perceptible in former times in the forms that eating had on certain places. I will write about traditional meals and eating habits of the region of the Giant Mountains, because our town is very near this specific cultural area of the highest Czech mountains.
People´s tradition in cuisine wasn´t good only at artistic form in the mountains, but especially at contents, although there were potatoes in many ways several times a week in many mountain cottages. Never and nowhere written recipes, saved in memory of the oldest people, brought to life only by verbal tradition, have become a little bit slighted Cinderella in our modern times. If we reach out at original people´s diet, we will find out, that it was ordinary, but in spite of poor devices also enough varied and so delicious.
We can disclose unexpected selection of soups, today already quite forgotten and unknown. I show for example fruit soups, which were shaken with cream. They were good at delicious taste, they warmed in winter and refreshed in comfortable way in hot summer. Milk soups, for example ,,smooth Annie“, were so nutritious, that they made up for meat, which wasn´t too standard in the Giant Mountains. Special soup made from sauerkraut is really ,,the white crow“. But sour soup (,,kyselo“) is the real queen of soups in this region. People got with this one up, they exhausted it from a big stone pot in the evening and they went ,,to bed with this soup“. It was prepared from bread leaven, it´s really unique because of delicious taste and plenty of vitamins. Mushrooms, garlic and onion soups were very important too.
When sour soup wasn´t, the day started and ended with milk, which could be sweet, sour or as a buttermilk. Curd and various dishes, for example pancakes made from barley flour or muffins made from white flour, were completed with milk from cows (in poor cottages from goats). Ordinary muffins (only baked on the cooking-range in most of the cottages) were a delicacy for children. Muffins were filled with fruits and vegetables according to year seasons. Goat cheese was made from goat milk.
Spices always took a very important place. People grew them in their gardens. So people used for example ,,native“ leaves of parsley and celery, chive, marjoram or dill. They knew also ,,foreign“ estragon and so on.
As I already wrote, potatoes were very weighty. Their time began in 1771, when there was famine in Czech lands. At the beginning this food wasn´t too popular though. In higher positions it wasn´t successful, in lower positions potatoes became domesticated early and became the only diet for local poor people sometimes. Potatoes were eaten boiled or roasted in peel, with salt and a small piece of butter. They became the second bread, the basic diet (together with sour soup) for breakfast of the poorest highlanders, mashed potatoes for dinner and potatoes boiled in their jackets and milk for supper. Sweetened lumps of potato pureé and potato pancakes were also very popular.
Bread was very frequent and necessary. It was used as a supplement to various meals, as a separate dish and as an ingredient of other dishes especially. Bread was added to some soups or sauces. In spite of want people baked many kinds of bread.
People liked to prepare mushrooms in different ways and you could find some candies in the poorest cottages too. But only richer people were able to enjoy meat. They had for example beef, pork, rabbit, poultry, game and fish singularly. This was rare in poor cottages. People drank largely milk, water, herbal tea and wine made from herbs or forest fruits.
Nowadays the Czech cuisine and alimentary habits look like different though. Czech breakfast isn´t too substantial and calm. Lunch is the main meal of the day, it consists of soup and the second, main dish. Supper can be cold or warm and it´s less substantial than lunch. Children usually have snack in the morning and tea in the afternoon. Czech people, who aren´t vegetarians, eat very much meat (pork, beef, poultry,…), they use potatoes, rice, typical Czech dumplings (potato, roll or fruit) and pasta as a side dish. They are more and more used to add vegetables and some salads to warm dishes. Nowadays you can buy most fruits in the Czech republic. This wasn´t standard earlier. Dumplings, pork and cabbage – this is famous Czech national dish. Czech stuffed cakes are typical too. Beer is the most popular drink, then for example mineral water, coffee, tea and wine a little bit.