ESL Blogs

In this blog I decided to sum up main points related to the Czech dining and cuisine. Some of my points you might find interesting, others disgusting or maybe you will get to know things you have never heard of before. So no more explanations, let's start!

1. We eat early

I can say that in comparison to other countries we eat very early, no matter if it is breakfast or dinner. We also wake up earlier and our working time starts from 6am or 8am. It means that breakfast we take usually at 6 - 7pm, then we take lunch between 12am and 1pm and our dinner is raedy most of the time at 7pm.

2. We eat heavy food

Our cuisine is very tasty but unhealthy. It is something related to our history because in the past people worked hard on the fields, they didn't sit in the office the whole day. The thing is that food is still the same but people don't have so much physical activities and also free time. This all lead to one big problem called obesity.

3. Our main food of the day is : Lunch

It might sound weird to you but it is like this. Our lunch is consisted of soup and warm main food, sometimes also people eat dessert. It is the heaviest food of the day and the most nutritious. On the contrarery dinner is lighter and from the medical point of view it is healthier not to eat so much in the evening, so I am satisfied with such life-style.

4. Sunday's lunch is something special

Let's not leave the topic lunch. Tradition of Sunday lunch is also something that has its roots in the history because Sunday used to be a special day. In the morning people went to the church and then they took festive lunch – something not so ordinary. We usually cook traditional Czech dishes like SVÍČKOVÁ (svi:chkova:) – meat, vegetable sauce and dumplings or ŘÍZEK (rzi:zek) – shnitzel with potatoes or potato salad. Some of us still keep this tradition, others cook what they want to.

5. We have special public dining rooms

When children are done with their classes at school, they go for lunch. Part of the school building is also one specious dining room, including equipped kitchen with stuff. In short it is very practical because parents don't prepare anything at home for the kids and kids can have fun and eat together.

The same you can also see in the big companies. When there is lunch time, employees go to dining room to take their lunch, which was cooked by special cooks.

6. After good food is a must to drink good beer

Czech beer is one of the best in the world, so no wonder Czechs are proud of it and dirnk it usually after Sunday's lunch, it is good for digestion. Anyway as we say in kind of sarcastic way:

Bear makes good bodies. (ehm not good bodies one would be proud of).

7. Tip is not included in the bill

Tipping is something little bit special as for our restaurants. How does it look like in real? During your stay a waiter usually jots down on the little paper what you have ordered and leave it on the table. Then when you want to pay, he counts it and says for example 20 dollars. At this moment is polite to say … 23 dollars. We decide what tip stuff deserve and if you are greedy or not satisfied with the service, you can simple stay quiet :-D

8. Killing a pig is a tradition

In the villages time to time people organize a big event called ZABÍJAČKA (zabi:yachka). People gather, a butcher kills the pig and then others help to prepare products of it. Cut the meat, cook soup made of blood, prepare special sausage meat etc. I know now you all feel like vomiting but once you would taste one of these products, I bet you would change your opinion ;-)

9. Exotic Czech food

The best in the end, so let me name now some of the little bit weird or interesting Czech food we eat here:

Soup: Noodle soup, Potato soup, Garlic soup, Cabbage soup, Cow's stomach soup, Goulash soup

Meat: Chicken, Fish, Beef, Pork, Rabbit, Duck, Goose, Deer, Livers, Kidneys, Beef Tongue :-D

Sauces: Tomato sauce, Dill sauce, Horseradish sauce, Mushroom sauce

Sweet: Crepes, Pancakes, Buns with Vanilla Creme, Cherry Pie, Sweet dumplings with strawberries, plums and many many others which aren't even possible to translate :-)

* The pictures were taken legally from Google, those one can share free with permission and from the website www.varecha.sk