Czech Food and Technical Difficulties – A Preview of The Big Europe Trip

“This week was supposed to be about Minnesota”

Did you know that Europe has a different electrical socket than we do in the US? If you’ve traveled internationally, you’ll probably know this already. Lots of other countries have different electrical sockets! Nick and I knew this, and we prepared accordingly for our big trip to Europe this summer. But did you know that the UK also has a different electrical socket than both the US and the EU? And did you know that you can’t trust the convenience store universal converters because they’ll shock your computer and fry the wall outlet? These are things I did not know, but have now learned the hard way.

So I am writing this blog from an ancient Chromebook with 20% battery in the top bunk of a London hostel. Where they do have working USB ports, which is nice because I can charge my phone just fine, but no electrical outlets that I can use. So I’m stuck with maybe an hour of juice left on this thing until I reach Dublin in about four days. Yay, travel! This has not been the first technical difficulty so far, I can assure you.

But more on that later! You’ll be the first second third unknown numerical itinerant to hear about all the technical difficulties that have been going on during Nick and my’s cross-continent travel extravaganza. In about a month, when I have a chance to write about them. In the meantime, because I need to whip out something quick before my computer dies and I’m forced to (*shudder*) type from my phone, please enjoy this preview of the things Nick and I have been doing in Europe. In the exclusive form of delicious Czech foods.

The blog this week was actually gonna be about Minnesota, in my first plans. The subtitle spoke true for once. It was gonna be a big long emotional review of my time with my first permanent job, how it felt to leave the state behind, all that kind of stuff. But I don’t have enough battery on my computer for the four hours of furious typing that a blog post will inevitably entail. You may or may not see that next week, when I (maybe?) have WiFi and electricity in Dublin. Though I have been told that I don’t have WiFi in the place I’m staying there, either, so… We’ll ultimately see about any and all of this, I guess? Here, uh, here’s the Czech food that Nick and have been eating instead.

In this brief review of Czech foods, eaten at various establishments in and around Prague, let me first introduce you to the breaded pork tenderloin, pictured above! Although the Czechs here have referred to it as both pork schnitzel and pork escalope, whatever the hell an escalope is. I’m just gonna call it schnitzel, because that’s probably more accurate. But this is a food that Nick and I were really excited to try because it’s something we’ve grown up with! Our family is pretty heavily Czech, at least on my dad’s side, so we did grow up eating a handful of more traditional Czech foods. One of my favorites has always been breaded pork tenderloin/pork schnitzel, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. 

You take some pork, you smash it with a hammer until it’s nice and flat, and then you dip in spices, breadcrumbs, eggs to get it to stick, maybe? and fry that puppy up until it’s delicious and will give you a heart attack. As a kid, I was always the tiniest bit doubtful that this was a real traditional food, because, come on, it’s like fried chicken. It seemed too good to be true. You mean that people just eat this all the time? And can call it a traditional food? But if I’m judging by the fact that every damn restaurant we went to had this on the menu, then yeah, I guess it is a real Czech food! And they’re just as delicious in the Czech Republic as they are back at home in my mom’s kitchen.

Next favorite of mine are the dumplings. Ooooh, I love dumplings. There’s something about the texture that’s just exceptionally good, especially the way my mom used to make them. I have a very carb-heavy diet, bread is my favorite food group, and I love just a good hunk of dough once in a while. I don’t know what it is, to be honest. I think it started as a texture thing and then I got really attached to the flavor of breads and dumplings, too. Because the texture is what does it for me; dense, soft, chewy, kind of like you’re biting into playdoh or how I imagined memory foam mattresses would be like to chew on. And I mean this in the best way possible, as distinctly unappetizing as that all probably sounds. Again, I don’t know what it is. I think it’s a sensory thing for me, but I love the sensation of chewing on bread and dumplings. It’s divine. 

In the Czech Republic, we had two common kinds of dumplings; bread and potato dumplings. Potato dumplings are my favorite, but I like them both. As far as I understand it, bread dumplings are balls of flour dough that have been boiled to cook them instead of baked in an oven, hence why they are not just regular bread. Potato dumplings are mashed potatoes that have been mixed with flour and spices to make an even denser ball that doesn’t have any of the air gaps like bread does when you boil it. So, you’re just putting the mashed potato back together. Which is weird when you think about it. But I love the things. I could eat them forever.

Also, my computer just gave me a five minute warning! Where did this come from!? I don’t know! Please enjoy the rest of these pictures of other foods I cannot tell you about yet. Does it feel like I’m somehow failing at this blog by giving into the difficulties of technology and not writing a full thing? Yes! But do I care enough to find a proper solution? Not at this time, no. Maybe I’ll fill this in with a director’s cut somewhere down the line where I get to do a real discussion of Czech food, and what Czech food means to me. And what family foods mean in general.

So for now, I hope that these pictures suffice. Please enjoy them and a few choice details about foods that I wanted to share, but they’re limited since I’m now typing this from my phone after all. You can play a game by matching my description here to which picture you think it applies to. It’s a fun adventure for everyone today.

💀🇨🇿🍗🍖🥟🐖🐷💀

Pork: there was lots of pork everywhere. Most dishes were pork based. Pork schnitzel, pork roast, pork slice, we got food one time from a street food stand who just had huge slabs of pork roasting over hot coals and cut the stuff directly onto our plates, like an Eastern European gyro. It was some of the best pork I’ve ever had. We also had that with Halušky, I think it was? Potatoes and bacon and cabbage. Incredible meal.

Rabbit: tried it here. Tasted kind of like steak. Not a huge fan.

Svičkova: might be butchering the spelling, but this beef dish with dumplings and a kind of sweet, kind of tangy berry and cream gravy is the national dish of the Czech Republic. I ate it in a medieval basement. It did not disappoint.

Trdelnik: this kind of Czech ice cream cone is made by wrapping dough around a metal tube, cooking it over an oven or hot coals, and then basting it with butter and sugar. Then you put ice cream on it. They sold them everywhere, and they were fantastic. My favorite was from the old Jewish quarter.

Cabbage: I’m not sure if Czech braised cabbage is the same thing as sauerkraut or not, mainly because I’m not sure how/if it’s fermented. But the best Czech cabbage is sweet, not too crunchy but not too soft either, and has some caraway seeds mixed in for good measure. I love the sweet Czech cabbage dishes.

Gulash: I don’t think it’s specifically a Czech dish, and it’s really just beef stew with different spices, but Nick and I had some incredible gulash in the Czech Republic. So much so that we went to the same restaurant two nights in a row to have it again. It was that good.

Duck: The roasted duck was the first meal I ate in the Czech Republic, and might have been my favorite. The skin was crispy and juicy, the meat tender and flavorful, and I of course took my cholesterol meds afterwards. With dumplings and cabbage, it might be my favorite type of meal. Not necessarily specifically this one, but in general. This one was pretty damn close, though. Rest in pieces Bohemian Crystal.

Licorice Percocets: oh, no! This isn’t what I wanted at all!

also, surprise! Wondering what happened?happeni ? My computers died bout an hour earlier than I anticipated, and I had to finish this up on half o

Hey, thanks for bearing with me during these technically difficult times. Did you match the descriptions to tbe pictures? How many do you think you got right? Leave your answers in the comments and I might or might not respond next week if my laptop is working! Fingers crossed!