Dec 09
21
Christmas dinner, as fresh as ever in Czech!
SO having been in Czech over Christmas before, their traditional dinner comes as no great surprise to me, but now having a blog, (the wonders of modern technology!), I thought it might be nice to share with everyone back in blightly!
Over here Christmas dinner is somewhat different to back home in that it is fish, (traditionally carp), with lashings of potato salad, Czech style with mustard frankfurters, gherkins, parsnip and celariac.
Although it is possible to buy Carp already filleted from any of the hundreds of stalls that suddenly appear almost overnight in pretty much every supermarket car park in the country, the traditionalists will purchase their fish as is, stick it in a carrier bag, take it home, and leave it in the bath to clean it out prior to service. For true comedy value you can give the carrier bag to a foreigner to carry, forget you did that, and then go and wander around a few shops while they follow you with a bag that keeps moving around as if by magic… highly amusing for all concerned!
So for all those who didn’t believe me here’s a picture of dinner in the bathtub! I just can’t help but wonder how Christmas dinner would change in the UK if the same values were upheld? how many people would keep a turkey in the garden ready to slaughter as part of the ritual on Christmas day morning?! I can certainly see why the Czechs have fish for Christmas dinner instead of beef!
Crikey, did you take a bath in that water before you put the fish in or something? š Will they survive in there till Friday?
Very funny Nick š
Go back 50 years and yep Steve it was the same here! I remember bringing home a chicken from the farm where I worked and for Mum to do the necessary on – and my sister crying all Christmas because it was so scrawny š
I’m sure this post will be weird in Czech within the next 10 years or so!
bloody hope not… Christmas celebrated on 24th here… If the’re alive on Friday it means I’m not! and no the muck in the water is from the fish, that’s why they are bought early and left in the bath, to purge the nasties!
Thank god I only have to fillet salmon.. not sure I could prepare a carp, although having them alive on the fish counter would be fun š š
Think yourself lucky Sally… Tesco have GARUNTEED the lowest priced Carp in Cz stores… so your counter-parts (get it hehehe) over here are going to be bloody busy slaughtering and filleting Carp! They tend to be kept in tanks in the car parks (where it drops to minus10) here though not on the fish counters inside the stores.
By the way Steve if you want a mugshot like Sally and I have in the comments goto gravatar.com and upload one using the email address you use š
Agree with your Dad I well remember that Christmas not much chicken and not many presents come to that. The following year we went to Auntie Millie’s for Christmas and had turkey for the first time.
Hope you enjoy the carp. Happy Christmas