Food

Food.

I like to eat. I am housing a tapeworm that has a voracious appetite. I am eating for two. From what I can tell, I am a pig by Czech standards. A need like this requires a considerable amount of food. A pound of pasta is no problem for me put away. Then, I am on to something sweet. This is just how I roll. I am surprised sometimes that I don’t gain more weight than I do (which is not much at all anyway. I am the same basic weight as I was fifteen years ago. Thanks mom and dad!), considering that I don’t do much of anything athletic at the moment because of the hibernation-grade weather that occurs in Praha in the wintertime.

We get here and start to walk around and see some sights. Things like cool old churches, villages where the doorways come up from the ground to only my eye line (177 cm), prisons where they tossed you in a dark damp hole to rot, theater roofs with roughly half the national economy in gold on them, and the contrasting grey concrete building against the grey sky. Sometimes you can almost miss the buildings as they are camouflaged by the winter sky. Despite the basically depressing nature of the weather, this place is pretty cool. Anyway, the tapeworm starts to get restless. If I don’t pack something into my gullet soon, the tapeworm is going to find its’ way out and then things will get really ugly.

Walking around the city is a high-fat food lovers dream. One can find just about any basic type of food here sold on the street. Now I am not talking about some little chinsy cart with some dirt bag slinging hot dogs (they do sell hot dogs here, I’ll get to that in a minute). I mean a stand that is semi-permanent with plumbing, electricity, full refrigeration and gas. A stand alone kitchen or shop. Sweet. The larger stands are in the busy, high foot traffic parts of the city. The rest of these things are like little windows or doors in the side of the buildings. When you walk up to one of these things, there is a menu with a picture of everything offered along with the name of the item and its’ price. Everything is pretty cheap by Czech standards, which means by the dollar, you eat like royalty. Yeah, royalty at a greasy-ass food stand, sure.

The majority of these stands are serving the same kind of stuff. Sausages. God love these people. They eat the shit out of some pork. I have been told that part of my family lineage stems from the Bavaria region in Germany. That is about 200 km west of here. I can’t help but think that there has to be some migratory Czech all up inst the blood line. They sell various things at these stands which I will list now. Pretty much everything that is not sweet is offered with a choice of catsup or mustard. They do not have little packets of that stuff here. They serve it for you. Sometimes they will charge you if you want extra. Bottom line on that is that there is no free lunch over here. Everybody gets theirs.

So a basic list of what is offered follows:

• ‘Hamburgers and cheeseburgers’ – fried, these are the same as the states but more like a country fried steak on a bun. Some come with the addition of sauerkraut. The usual lettuce, tomato and onion thing is not offered.
• ‘Burgers’ – fried, these are basically a sandwich with something else besides beef. Examples would be: ham made from chicken, turkey or pork sometimes with processed cheese (these people love their processed stuff) throughout it. Sometimes offered with sauerkraut, and usually with some kind of ranch-like creamy sauce which I decline if possible because I abhor ranch.
• ‘Sausages’ – these are my personal favorite. There are 4 or 5 basic kinds of these that are sold. Some are sold with a slice of bread (the usual stale rye style bread that you find everywhere here) while others are on some kind of roll. Some examples would be: kielbasa, German sausage (like American breakfast links), something called ‘Jitrnice’ which I purchased at a stand during Christmas time. In the town squares, which are all over the city, at Christmas people set up booths and sell just about everything that you find at the worst art fairs across the world. Trinket festivals I like to call them. If ever there were a candidate for Malakoff (sp?) cocktail practice, this kind of thing would be it. Can you just imagine: cloth and wood booths going up in flames with people everywhere running and screaming with tears in their eyes wondering what they will do now that their antler coat racks, cute little carved wooden animals, ear rings made with polished non-precious rocks, yarn wrapped coat hangers twisted into the shape of kittens, pine wood wine racks, etc… are all up in flames; trinkets of all shapes and sizes, burning, melting, exploding and me, up on a hill, standing tall, my body illuminated by the orange glow from the fire pit below me, with a sinister laugh that echoes across the lands, like a demon from the depths of hell (at least according to these people) that has come to rid the world once and for all of these horribly mind numbing events and the articles found within them. WHOA! Sorry about that. I’ll get back on track now. They also sell food at these things similar to everywhere else. For the record, I would spare all of the food stands except the one selling ‘Jitrnice’, which would get one full cocktail for itself. Jitrnice is some nasty, mealy, bland ass crap. I bit into this thing and like a fried cheese wonton, mealy ground pork guts shot all over my cheek. It was nasty. For some reason I felt like this was the Czech version of haggis but with meat. The casing for the sausage was rubbery and super thick. I seriously questioned the edibility of this thing but Hanka was all about it. Go girl, get it all. Anyway, getting back to sausage types… Let’s see, we had kielbasa, German sausage, and jitrnice (yuktrnice). Now also they have: spicy kielbasa, a bratwurst kind of thing and ‘párek’ (Czech hot dogs). The Czechs take their hot dogs seriously. You see these things in stands everywhere and are called ‘párek v rohlíku’ (hot dog in rolled bread). These things are great. To start, the hot dog is higher (or lower, who really knows. All I can say is that they taste way better.) quality than its’ American counterparts. They are smoky and salty and just damn good porky deliciousness. When you order one you are first asked for your choice of mustard or catsup (the Czechs absolutely love their catsup as well. My girlfriend likes catsup on pasta, I vomit, but that is another tangent). The person making the dog for you then dips the dog in the sauce of your choice. Meanwhile, they have cut the end off of a roll just longer and with a slightly greater diameter of the dog. This roll is not your average American white bread hot dog bun. This is a real roll, made from good bread dough that you would actually want to eat by itself. This roll is then placed on a heated metal rod the diameter of the dog, to warm it up from the inside. They make these machines just for these hot dogs. When the roll is hot, they slide the dog down inside the roll and hand it to you. You then walk away with a tear of joy in your eye at what a thing of beauty this really is.
• ‘Řízek’ – fried, this is a thin fillet of fried pork, chicken or turkey. It is served on a roll with lemon or that ranch crap. Tasty, very tasty, except of course, the ranch. A quick note on the roll on which all of the sandwiches are served. These, like the rohlík for the hot dogs, are real rolls. They are not that wonder bread bullshit that is more air than bread and without flavor. I would liken this to something like a French roll. These rolls really add to the overall enjoyment of the sandwich.
• ‘Smažený sýr’ – fried cheese. What more can I say about this? A fried cheese sandwich. Life is good. Unfortunately, they anti-climactically dress the thing with, once again, that ranch bullshit. The ranch, however, is almost edible here, almost.
• ‘French fries’ – no comment.
• ‘Sýrové Karbanátky’ – Damn. Fried dumplings of cheese, ham or bacon and potatoes. These are like croquettes and they will make you kill to get them. They serve these with hranulky (French fries). I am going to buy stock in fryer grease over here.
• ‘Fornetti’ – this is a borrowed name. Actually, I think that it is a brand name from somewhere else and I don’t really care where. These things are puff pastry pockets with all sorts of fillings. They have fillings ranging from nuts to fruit to pizza flavoring to poppy seeds. They bake these things right in the stand. They are always hot and crispy and really good. They totally draw you in because you can smell them baking from a mile away. At the flora metro station (the one nearest us, hence it is the one that we use) there is one right at the top of the escalator accessing the subway platform. If you have ever been on a subway, you know that there is always air blowing either to or from the station. This air blows the fornetti smell down into the station so you can smell them right when you get off of the train. Damn them.
• ‘Pizza’ – yes, I said pizza. These are more sold out of store fronts and windows than the traditional food stand. You can order pretty much what you want, but the topping selection is greatly reduced compared to that of most places in the states. I went into one of these places and had a combo pie in five minutes. It pretty much sucked but if I compared it to the place from where I just came, it could compete. The big thing is that this pie cost me $2.50 US. Damn.
• ‘Gyros’ – the same as anywhere in the states but WAY bigger. The doner kebabs (big-ass hunk of processed meat on a skewer, more like a stake or pole, rotating next to a heat source) in some of these places are larger that some of the heads of cattle grazing the pastures that create them. These things are pretty popular here. After having one, I see why.
• ‘Cukrárna’ – OK, so these are not really stands or true street food but they warrant some note because they are everywhere you will be walking (which happens to be the whole city). Cukrárna are little dessert shops that sell a delicious varied assortment of diabetic killing goodies along with coffee and tea. These things are a great example of what the locals are about. This is no Starbucks where you go in, get a pastry and/or cup of coffee and roll out. You go in these places to take a break, have a cup of some kind of tasty beverage along with something for your sweet tooth. Now isn’t that special. People here generally stop doing whatever it is they are doing and have some kind of refreshment. There are virtually no in and out beverage shops here, unlike in the states where every coffee shop is geared towards the 'on the go' customer.
• ‘Ice Cream’ – Every time I go out it never ceases to amaze me the popularity for eating something cold on a frigid winter day. Yet this happens. It amazes me almost as much as the affinity that most women here have for coloring their hair some absolutely hideous shade of red or sometimes purple(I am not exaggerating the use of the words ‘affinity’ or ‘hideous’. It is unbelievable what I see on women’s heads here!). You see ice cream just flying out of these places. I can’t imagine what the summer will hold. Maybe hot chocolate and warm spiced wine stands everywhere. The stuff here is pretty good but I, personally, will wait until it gets warmer to have it again.
• ‘Drinks’ – What can I say here, nothing special except they sling this hot spiced wine stuff here in the winter. It smells OK. I have not tried because I don’t drink, and no one around me that I know has purchased one.

One would think that with all of this greasy and sugary food being sold across the city, everyone here would be ridiculously obese. That is, in fact, the opposite here. Of course there are over-weight people here just like anywhere else. The point is that the number is MUCH lower than that of the states. Unlike me, these people have one of something and are pretty much done. I, on the other hand, and providing I enjoy whatever I have had, want a second, if not third helping. I am a food ADDICT! HA! Food addict, what a ludicrous notion. I will avoid the demented tangent begging to be typed and bid you farewell for now…