Prague Treats

I didn’t have any preconceived notions about Czechia when I visited it, food wise. I’ve never really thought about what was Czech food before. You don’t really hear about Czech cooking in the media or on the internet where I come from. The only ties to foods you hear about from Czechia are Soviet era foods, and many of them are kind of sad. The thing I’ve learned however is that Czech food is not sad at all, and even better is that it has influence from other parts of the world, but embraces it’s own style at the same time.

I think the two dishes I found most in my time in Prague was deep fried meats and stews. While both of these dishes are fairly common in this part of Europe, the Czech people do them really well. They also on occasion mixed things up a bit and give these classic European dishes their own twist. There’s a popular dish called svíčková which is beef with dumplings, cream sauce and uniquely cranberry jam.  What I’m saying is that the food is both very European, but also Czech as well.

Dessert wise I feel like they have the same beautiful combination. I would probably say that when it comes to the sweets I found, they had a more traditionally European feel to them. While I did visit near the Christmas holidays, I found several places that offered gingerbread all year long, including one store that sold gingerbread exclusively all year long. When I went into bakeries it felt comfortable and safe. While I rarely saw anything that was totally new to me, I felt safe with just about everything. The quality of the sweet treats and desserts was also really high. It was rare to bite into something disappointing.

Probably the most popular Czech dessert is větrník, and it’s well worth giving a try. It may seem like a simple puff pastry with cream in the middle, but it’s so much more. More often than not the creamy centre just has some kind of rich flavour that I can’t explain. However, the crowning achievement is the caramel coating that you often find on these clouds of delight. While I’m all for eating healthy, I love it when a dessert doesn’t lie about being unhealthy, and větrník does just that. When you bite into this rich dessert you know that it’s only there to please you, and not make you skinny.

I also can’t talk about Czechia without mentioning Kofola. Kofola was first described to me as the cola for Czechs from before they had Coke or Pepsi. This is their classic carbonated drink, and it’s as unique as it comes. One might describe it as cola created by people who had only heard a description of cola but never tasted it. I would describe it as almost a cola, but with a more spice/tea flavour. While I’m not sure it’s for everybody, I feel like it’s something everyone should at least try once.

Fast food wise there’s a lot going on in Czechia. The standards are there, and for the most part they’re fairly similar to what you might find in most countries, however there’s always a little twist. A great example is that McDonald’s offers deep fried brie cheese that you can pair with cranberry sauce. It’s way too classy for McDonald’s if you ask me, but it was fun to try. As an additional note, their special pie was a blueberry cream pie, and it was fantastic.

On this trip, I can’t say that I had one bad meal. From fancy dining to fast food it was all great. On the surface it all looked fairly simple, old fashioned European, but dig a little deeper and you could really find some true Czech originality.