Rebecca Swartz, Plus3 SSOE Transfer: Czech Republic Summer 2023
Food is most definitely the window to the soul. Czech cuisine could not be any more different than American cuisine, but I loved getting to indulge in it and try lots of new things. I made it my mission on this trip to branch out and try new foods and I am so glad that I followed through and succeeded in this mission. I got to try pork knee and pork knuckle which turned out to be some of my favorite meals from the trip despite my original hesitations to even order them. Another standout dish for me was Svickova which is meat with the most incredible and flavorful sauce I have ever had. The best way to describe the sauce is thick, soupy, filling, and pure happiness to my taste buds. While it isn’t necessarily a food, the raspberry lemonade is something I will never forget. Almost every restaurant we went to had its own version of homemade raspberry lemonade that typically had real raspberries in it and was super fresh. This delicious drink was either the same price or barely more than the price of water, so it was a no-brainer to order it with every meal. I would return to the Czech Republic in the future just to get one more homemade raspberry lemonade. We even did a souvenir mug painting activity, and I painted mine with a raspberry lemonade theme to remember this magical beverage that was a core memory for me of my time in Prague. Another staple food in Czech cuisine that is featured in most meals is bread dumplings. They are nothing like the dumplings we are used to and are more like compact loaves of stale bread with some seasoning and gravy. There was a wide variety of executions of this classic Czech side dish, and I found some to be surprisingly good. The bread dumpling is very representative of the Czech Republic and its history. They started to make these dumplings during World War II when stale bread was at times the only food available. It is amazing that they have kept this dish in its cuisine as a free country with many other options available and serves as a good reminder of all that the country has been through in recent history. Overall, most of the dishes I had are extremely filling and contained lots and lots of gravy. Another common theme is that most of the meals are mostly brown and don’t look too appealing. However, I was blown away by how flavorful and enjoyable the extremely filling and dull-looking Czech food really is.
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