your Prague guide by someone who lives here
Vegetarianism has taken its time showing up on the Czech plate. Twenty years ago it was a challenge to find a vegetarian restaurant. Now, although still scarce, there are more establishments catering to people who prefer to eat food without a face. Vegetarian restaurants now exist but there is nothing Czech or traditional about them. Asking a Czech grandmother to cook her delicious buckwheat salad has never happened. If you are visiting Prague and want the true Czech experience you will need to eat meat, lots of it.
The worldwide popularity of vegetarianism has done nothing to diminish Czech’s preference for meat. Meat is a necessity in almost all traditional Czech dishes. Pork being the undisputed meat favourite, in 2012 almost 42 kg of pork was eaten per person - a pig per person.
Menus have a non meat meals section. But to most Czechs vegetarian meals belong to a special category similar to Macdonald’s meals - for times of depression or as a hang-over remedy. The vegetarian section is called ‘bezmasá jídla’ which translates as food without meat. Although be forewarned, without meat does not mean skimpy on the calories. Deep fried slabs of cheese, or balls of boiled dough covered with sugar, cottage cheese and melted butter are examples of these meatless belly bloaters.
If you need to avoid meat here are the options you will find on almost all menu’s at Prague restaurants:
If a Czech pig could pray it would look up to the sky and say, please mighty and wise Pig of all porks, please convert all people into practicing vegetarians.
When I was young I was sent to live with cousins in a quaint little Czech country village. There were around a hundred families each with their own plot of land on which sat the customary U shaped arrangement of elongated buildings. The base of the U for humans and the wings for animals, farm equipment, coal and fire wood. At the centre of the village for all to share a large square plot of grass with a steeple chapel. As I saw the village 20 years ago was how it was 200 years ago and exactly how it is today.
Holding hands my cousin leads me to see the pig pen. Being from the city my acquaintance with the porky beasts consisted of Charlotte's Web and the picturesque movie Babe. As we enter through the short creaky door the stench not only smacks my nose but keeps digging down till it settles in my stomach. It is not dark, it is grey, the sunlight from the ajar door is barely able to penetrate the mosquito air. The two hundred year old brick walls crack and seep with mud and moss. As my eyes adjust I stop at a waist high wall. I carefully rest my hands against the wall plate and slowly lean over to look down. Before I comprehend exactly what I am looking at it makes a deep sound that can only sound natural in cage 666 of hell’s zoo. A beached whale - the bloated thing lay on it’s side with two of its toothpick legs in the air resting against it’s girth. The four walls of his pen just about touched him on all sides. As my innocent mind comprehends this sight of misery I realised the pig has laid in this position, in this pen, in the dark, in this stench, for all its miserable years of its miserable life. For all the times I have been riding my bike, playing in the woods, watching TV with my family, sleeping in my warm bed - this pig has been laying, unable to move, staring at the same three bricks in front of its face. Suddenly an eyeball lazily turned and stopped as it met mine. As they say, I saw his soul.
Walking back out into the light I emerged into the yellows and blues and greens of the world. We sat on our bikes and cycled to the lake. All through summer the sight of the bloated prisoner huanted my mind, especially during the times I was enjoying the world around me. With friends shouting and laughing around me I looked at the hills, the trees and the clouds and thought of that pig laying there - at that very same moment.
Once a year family and friends from the village gather together and celebrate. Knives are sharpened, troughs are cleaned and large charcoal black pots are placed around the butcher table. Everybody has a part to perform. The men and older boys chop, slice, scoop, and ground. The girls walk around with rags and mops maintaining a clean work area. Wifes and mothers make sure the men are well fed throughout the day while they hack and sweat. The youngest and most energetic boy has the honour to start the festivities - catch and hold the frightened pig as it senses his final hour has arrived. With cheer and clapping for encouragement the boy chases, corners and finally holds the pig down. The day officially begins. The day is called zabijačka - pig slaughter day. What started in the early morning as a frightened pig ends by afternoon as sausages, hams, lard, bacon and pork bellies.
Nothing is spared, everything is eaten in one form or another. Even the blood does not go to waste. The blood is drained into a deep pot and heated, then with a small wooden paddle the blood soup is stirred for hours to prevent coagulation. The smell of blood soup fills the air as friends huddle around and inhale deeply. A line of the hungry forms with bowls and spoon in hand.
The intestines are used to create sausage wraps which are filled with ground pig meat soaked in its own blood. As the sausage is cooked the air expands and pushes from the inside against the intestine skin. When the fork punctures the tight intestine skin a gratifying explosion of blood and meat splurges across the plate.
The tongue and skin is chewed at and nibbled throughout the day. All the remaining pig pieces, including bone, are mixed together with head cheese and pig skin broth to form a pig jelly desert called tlačenka. By the end of the afternoon all that is left are the bones. Every young girl takes a bone and throws it across the yard - the first bone snapped up by a dog signals which girl will be the first to marry and be mother to the next generation of pig lovers.
I hope you find this website helpful. I created the website because I love Prague, I enjoy writing about it, and I get a weird kick out of helping you make your trip to Prague more enjoyable.
I wrote a book about local travel in Prague. The book is my pride, my joy, my unbiological offspring. It was written with a passionate heart. If you find this website helpful consider getting the book. You will receive an entertaining book full of useful tips that will instil in you the confidence to wander the local streets of Prague. The book is also included in the popular Prague Local Explore Kit Bag.
Thank you,
Roman : Prague 2019