Cooking

Thanksgiving (a holiday not normally celebrated here) is this week, so naturally our thoughts turn to cooking.  I like to cook. I can remember as a youngster daydreaming about becoming a chef someday. I started cooking big meals as theme dates when Kristine and I were first going out. In the last 10 years I've had the pleasure of knowing and being inspired by some phenomenal cooks (e.g. Suzy Clive, Heather Camp, Tony Gregor (who's now gone pro)). So, a few words on cooking here.

The first challenge with cooking here was shopping for ingredients.  I've got a pretty good handle on food words now, at least for the basics.  I mean, I still spend an inordinate amount of time reading labels (even with words I know the meaning of the symbols does not jump off the package), but I can usually get what I want.

Pork (which constitutes 2/3 of the meat section in stores) and chicken are fairly cheap, beef much more expensive.  I can get duck anywhere, and some places have geese and turkeys and rabbit.  The basic vegetables are available. 

There are some things they just don't have...

• Vanilla Extract - thanks to a tip from Tony Gregor of Token BBQ we are made our own
• Peanut Butter - okay they do have it in some stores but it's incredibly expensive and I've only seen the hydrogenated oiled, sweetened variety (Jif or Skippy), so for all practical purposes, they don't have PB
  
• Root Beer - not like I miss it or anything, but most folks here think it tastes like medicine (think old fashioned creosote based cough syrup)
• Corn starch
• Cumin - fortunately, Kristine's sister Becky sent us a bunch
• Turmeric
• Sweet Potatoes - I could have sworn I saw some in a store once, but no luck since.
• Cheddar cheese - well, they have it, but it is super expensive.  We use Eidam instead.
• Cranberries - they do have lingonberries (a fine substitute and reasonably priced)

Things I have been delighted or intrigued to find:

• Fish sauce - in some stores in little bottles, but I found the big bottle of Squid brand in a little corner store run by Vietnamese immigrants.
• Jasmine rice - again, you can spend a lot as a specialty food in stores, but I was happy to find the 10 pound bag for cheap
• Pumpkin - more common now as a decoration, some places have the varieties meant as food, but expensive (we paid $6 for one)
  
• Creamy ice cream - I was afraid they would just have the watery kind.
  
• Pizza - it used to be flat bread with ketchup on it, but now there are a lot of pizzerias with pictures (we have yet to partake) of real pizza.  They also have frozen ones in the store.  We'll find out how it is because the congregation has a tradition of getting pizzas from a pizzeria for the annual Christmas party.
  

Once you find what you need, you have to get it home.  Lots of folks have cars now, but we have chosen to rely on walking, biking, and public transportation.  Fortunately, there are a lot of small grocery stores all over the place so flour, sugar, milk, butter, eggs, veggies, meat, cheese, and bread can be had very easily.  If you want better prices or more exotic ingredients, you have to go to the bigger stores.  The photo below shows what I carried home in my backpack on my bike one day.

From Sept 09

We have a gas stove - which I really appreciate for cooking.  We also have an electric oven.  When we got here the oven didn't work, so they brought in a new one.  The fellow who delivered it said that the owners had originally said they want a small one like what was here already.  He told them, no they are Americans and have a big family so they need a big oven to make a big turkey.  A big oven here is still small compared to what we are used to, but it provides enough space.

The apartment has some of the tools I am used to.  Others I have been making do without or have purchased.  We have an incredible set of knives - I think I will buy some good ones when we return to the states. 

Our first batch of cookies didn't go so well.  They came out a little crisp.  I don't understand, I put them in at 350 degrees just like the directions said.

We've made really good roast ducks, geese and chickens, Vietnamese bun, Thai curry, fruit dumplings, and a chocolate cream pie.  We find recipes on the web or get tips from people here, or just experiment.  It's fun.

So, we will celebrate Thanksgiving on Sunday with the two sets of missionaries.  We'll roast a turkey and have stuffing, potatoes, a vegetable, gravy and, if I can find a pumpkin that looks good, I'll bring it home on the bus and Kristine will make a pie.

We wish you all a very good Thanksgiving. 

Peter

Czech Food

Fifteen years ago, when I first put a Czech fork to my lips, I gained 15 pounds in the one month we were here - the combination of my love of Czech food and Czech grannies' love of cooking.  Well, we are not staying with any grannies this time around so we are not consuming 2000 calories meals on a daily basis, but we have eaten almost all of the classic Czech dishes.  Here is a summary...

Pork (vepřove), cabbage (zeli), dumplings (knedliky)
This is the Czech national dish.  The pork is roasted.  The cabbage (white or red) is cooked with bacon grease and vinegar (like you would get rot kohl at a German restaurant).  The dumplings are shaped as logs that get sliced up.  Kristine always packs a little of all three unto each forkful. We have not had this dish yet on this trip.  The young families we hang with don't eat such heavy food so much.  Also, we have only eaten out a very few times and the places did not have this (which shocked us).  I make the cabbage, but have only heated up pre-made dumplings (which are not bad).  We have had those as sides with other things, I have yet to try making pork roast here. 

Svičkova
This is Kristine's favorite dish.  It is a beef roast that first marinates in vinegar (similar to German sauerbraten) and vegetables.  The vegetables and roasting juices get made into a sauce with heavy cream.  It is eaten with knedliky.  The kids have had this already, but not Kristine nor me - until today.  I am making it with homemade dumplings.  Unfortunately for my pride, our friend Jana made svičkova today and brought some over at lunch time.  So, Kristine will go from hers to mine just five hours apart. 

Rižek
Known as milanesa in Argentina and wienerschnitzel in Austria this is meat dipped in breadcrumbs and fried.  I always make mine with chicken.  It's quick and tasty.  It also travels well (they sell milanesa - made with beef - sandwiches at bus stations in Argentina).



Duck
Expensive in the US this bird is very reasonably priced here.  And you can't go wrong roasting something with that much fat.  I'll have to try to convince Kristine's dad to keep a bunch of ducks so we can roast one now and again.

Rabbit
Had it before, but not yet on this trip.  It's in the meat section of most stores.  Some people still have the hutch out back where they raise them for food.  In fact, a fellow at the farmers' market sells young rabbits.  I almost bought one as a pet for Silas.

Carp
This noble fish is farmed in big ponds all over the place.  The kids have had it in school, but I have not yet (here).  The tradition is to eat carp and potato salad on Christmas.  I'll let you know how it turns out.
 
Klobasa
This is the generic term for sausage.  This is common fair, especially at any festivals.  Lots of varieties.  Good, as long as it is not cold.

Mushrooms
We talked about this one before.  Best fried up in butter and mixed with cream for a sauce over knedliky.  It looks like the season is over as I did not see the mushroom man at the farmers market.

Fruit dumplings
Imagine a steaming pile of boiled dumplings with juicy seasonal fruit (strawberry, blueberry, apriocot or plum) inside, topped with powdered sugar, ground up poppy seeds, hard grated cottage-flavored cheese, and drizzled in melted butter.  The best part - this is not dessert - it's dinner.  We make these successfully back at home with strawberries or blueberries in a yeast dough.  Last week we finally made our own plum dumplings in a potato dough.  We got some tips from friends on how to improve them, so, next fall, you are all invited for plum dumplings at our place.

Fresh Veggies
While Czech men do not normally eat vegetables willingly, it is common to slice up red peppers (inexpensive here) or cucumber or other seasonal veggies to take along on trips to the country and snack on them. 

Beer
We've talked about this before also, but a post on food would be incomplete without it.  We have developed a taste for the Bernards Non-alcoholic Plum Beer.  Most men here say it tastes like juice and not beer, but we like it.  It is also seasonal and we will not be able to get anymore in a month or so.

Bread
One of the delightful aspects of life here is fresh bread.  We get it fresh most days.  Nice, brown crusty loaves that would be labeled "artisan" in the US.  Or little rolls in white or whole wheat.  Many mornings I eat just bread and butter for breakfast.

Well, the svičkova got cooked.  It was okay.  The beef got a little dry.  The sauce could have used a little more lemon.  The dumplings were ugly as sin and a little slimy, but they had a fine flavor.  I'll keep working on it and hopefully get it figured out before we leave.

Peter 

Pivo

Beer - the Czech National Drink. You may as well learn the word - Pivo.

Important notice - we are Mormons. That means we follow a revelation received by Joseph Smith called the Word of Wisdom which, among other things, instructs us to not drink alcohol. No alcohol was consumed in preparing this post.

Czechs drink beer. Lots of beer. More beer, in fact, than any other people on the earth. They drink nearly twice as much beer per capita as Americans - 156.9 liters per person (or about a pint a day). Given that most of this is consumed by men, but the per capita includes women and children, the guys here make college boys in the US look like teetotallers.

Beer is everywhere here. Every restaurant serves beer, every supermarket has a whole aisle dedicated to it, everywhere you turn.

The big names in beer here are known to people in the US too:

• Budvar is a popular beer hailing from none other than our home town Česke Budejovice (or Budweis in German). In American, Anheuser-Busch stole the name for their Budweiser Beer.
• Pilsener beer (a generic term for a pale lager) was developed in Plzn in the western part of the Czech Republic. The brewery in Plzn produces two hugely popular beers: Pilsner Urquell and Gambrinus, the latter being the sponsor of the professional Czech fotbal league.

There are some 45 other local breweries also. Just like in Minnesota in the olden days when there were regional breweries everywhere.

By the way, if you want to read an intriguing book in which beer plays a pivotal role in the battle between East and West, check out The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers.

The most intriguing thing about beer in the Czech Republic is that they are serious about non-alcoholic beer. Because they are so strict about drunk driving (legal blood alcohol limit is 0.00), non-alcoholic beer has a place in the mainstream. You see billboards for it and the major breweries produce it.

So, we have given the non-alcoholic beers a try. We first tried one made by Birrell (with the classic roast pork, sauerkraut and dumplings). Silas spit it out. Everyone disliked it. Then we tried the non-alcoholic Budvar (with hot dogs). This was much smoother but still tasted foul. Finally, we tried Bernard's Plum Beer (with burgers). This had a nice plum flavour that was only marred by the beer taste. I guess we just haven't developed a taste for beer, but that's okay.

From Sept 09

Peter