Czech yourself before you wreck yourself – pt 1

Elvira and I have just returned from a child-free trip to Prague, capital of the glamorous Czech Republic – the veritable Switzerland of the former Soviet bloc.

And so, before I return to the subject of my recent jury service (THANKS for the complete ABSENCE of useful legal advice, by the way), I will regale you with a little bit of travel writing.

However, in inimitable ODHSNM style, this will largely consist of my impressions of various things that either did happen or that I am imagining to have happened, upon extrapolation from a more mundane reality. As such, if you are looking for a useable guide on Things to do in Prague – as ever - I suggest you go elsewhere.  

Czech Cuisine

I did not see a single green vegetable on offer, from street food kiosks to five-star restaurants. Come to think of it, unless you count braised red cabbage – which consists more of sugar and booze than cabbage – I don’t think I saw any vegetables at all.

In their place, you have dumplings. Dumplings big, dumplings small, dumplings smooth, lumpy or gnocchi-like – all made of flour or potato, and in Elvira’s well-chosen words all “very binding”.

I can’t fault Czech cuisine for flavour and heartiness, but I suspect that constipation may be one of the country’s biggest public health issues.

Having said that, the degree of bowel irritation I personally experienced as a result of drinking the ample strong coffee on offer more or less offset the bunging-up effect of the food.

At the hotel breakfast, I was led to wonder why the UK is so rubbish when it comes to bread. Here, I was faced with about 20 different options of variously shaped and flavoured rolls, slices and more. Fennel seed in bread, I wholeheartedly recommend. But at home, it’s “white or brown or both”. Why are the British content with damp, floppy, sliced white shite?

Another thing we in the UK seem to neglect is the admirable continental tradition of distilling alcoholic bitters – the Czech speciality being a delightful little tipple called Becherovka.

I have come to the conclusion that the “secret recipe” for Jagermeister – surely the Rod Stewart to Becherovka’s Tom Waits – must comprise one part Becherovka to one part Beecham’s Venos Expectorant for Chesty Coughs.

More to follow, when we consider Czech Technology and Czech Culture...