Czech cuisine

It consists of soup – that is a must on the table, as well as a main course and dessert. This tradition is now changing into meals that are less rich, but taking place more often. Czech cuisine most of all consists of meat dishes – pork, beef and poultry, aromatic sauces, with lots of butter, cream or traditional roux, bread, soups cooked on rich meat or fish stock.

Czech flavours

Right next to chicken broth and tomato soup, so popular on Czech tables, there is garlic soup - cesnakova polevka, tripe - drstkova polevka and goulash soup. Goulash is especially popular – it’s a combination of stewed meat in aromatic, well-seasoned sauces. They are served with knedliky – bread, yeast or potato dumplings. Knedliky are used instead of potatoes or rice with meat in thick sauce. Vegetables are also popular – e.g. fried cauliflower - smazeny kvatak, potato pancakes – bramboráky or pea puree - hrachova kase. We cannot forget about the characteristic fried cheese in breadcrumbs – smazeny syr served with sauce and chips. The Czech fast food is parek v hladniku – a hot dog with mustard or ketchup sold from street vendors. On the other hand, the most favoured beer snack happens to be utopence – pickled hot dog. As far as desserts are concerned, besides the sweet knedliky, you can see fritters and pancakes – palacinky and karlovarske oplatky – wafers with chocolate or nut filling, or sweet croissants – rohlicky.

There are close to 500 kinds of beer, famous beer houses Pilsner or Budweiser as well as the smaller brands, local breweries make as good beers as the larger ones. This is an inseparable part of the Czech tradition. Not only making beer is a ritual, bit also the way it is poured and drunk. Gourmets and specialists in this area say that beer should be poured in slowly, with deliberation, since the most important thing relies on that – the quantity and quality of the beer head.