Bohemian food love story - a Trip to Prague #1

This summer I went on a trip to the Czech capital Prague with a friend of mine. This post will be the start of a series about Prague.

When we went to Prague we of course wanted to taste authentic Czech food. When I was a child I grew up in a region near to the Czech Republic but I didn't realize that I ate a lot of czech & czech-influenced food when I was young. So the trip to Prague was like a food dreamland of my childhood. I remembered all my favourite dishes I used to eat as a child.

One of the most famous dish of Czech is goulash with dumpling. There are so many variations of this dish. The most famous one abroad is beef goulash with sliced bohemian bread dumpling. But you can also find goulash with pork or sometimes turkey breast with a light gravy.

Germans love to eat potatoes & Czech love to eat dumplings.

As you may know there are many, many sorts of dumplings. Some of them are bread dumplings, bacon dumplings, semolina dumplings, potatoe dumplings, ... And there are also sweet ones, like yeast dumplings filled with plums, apricots or blueberries - my favourite ones.

But Czech cuisine has much more to offer than goulash & dumplings. There are also many delicious deserts & healthy & light summer dishes. I think I'll introduce some oft them soon.

But let's talk about where to eat best in Prague.

When we were on our way to Prague Castle we discovered this small, very cute panncake-shop. (Can you say it like this in English?) It is called 'Creperie u Katjetána'. The pancakes we ate there were really good, althought in my opinion they were rather french crèpe than czech palačinka - czech pancakes. You also have to taste the home made limonade. This limonade ist not too sweet but really refreshing & the best decision on a hot summer afternoon.  In the back of this shop you can find a very lovely summer garden. Everything was furnished very lovingly & the waitress was very nice too. We didn't feel like we were in a typically tourists restaurant. It was really comfortable there & we stayed some time just to relax & to enjoy the wonderful summer day. I really advise you to go there when you're vistiting Prague. You can find the Creperie on the street called Nerudova - between the Curch St. Nicholas & the Prague Castle.

summer garden

pancake shop

pancake withe banana & nuts (left) pancake with cinnamon & sugar (right)

The 'U Dvóu Sester' is a restaurant that offers delicious & authentic Czech dishes. You can also have the good tasting Czech beer there. Because I can't stand eating goulash the entire 3 days we spent in Prague I had a fried potatoe patty with sauerkraut seasoned with caraway & Czech sausage. You should know that Czech sausages usually contain pieces of fat. Either you're used to it or you won't really like it. My friend had the typically Czech goulash with sliced bohemian dumplings as mentioned above. It was really tasty. Somehow I was a bit jealous on this goulash. I should had taken that, too. This restaurant is situated very close to the Old Town Square. The street is called Melantrichova. You can find it easily on google. If you want to eat real authentic Czech dishes you should go there.

I'm sorry for the poor quality of these pictures.

Goulash with sliced bread dumpings

Fried potatoe patty - not very notable, but very delicious

And this is how you can find both restaurants:

Way to 'Creperie u Katjetána'

Way to 'U Dvóu Sester'

In the end you should know that it is not easy to find real authentic Czech restaurants in Prague. You should consider that most of the restaurants just offer some variations of goulash with dumplings, because most tourist want to eat this dish but don't have any sense what authentic Czech food is. I really wanted to eat yeast dumplings filled with blueberries, but no restaurant offered them. Nor did any of them offer authentic Czech desserts. To taste real authentic Czech dish you have to leave the main attractions & go to regions or cities with less tourists. I advice going to Czech hiking areas for the nature is breath taking & the hiking trails are very interesting.









Here are some pictures of the delicious Czech food we ate during our trip. Everything tasted so good.

palačinka  filled with mascarpone & vanilla ice cream

apple strudel & cinnamon ice cream

bacon dumplings & goulash

Pasta

non-alcoholic cocktail with mint, lime & brown sugar

turkey breast filled with spinach

goulash soup in a loaf of bread

small pancakes in blueberry sauce

palačinka with fruits

I hope you'll like Czech food as I do ;-)

Golem

It was in the year of 1580, when the Jews of Prague were once again accused of ritual murders committed against children. One night a highly respected rabbi called Judah Loew ben Bezalel had a special dream. A voice told him to create a being out of clay & formed like a human, which shall protect the Jewish inhabitants against antisemitic assaults. Thereupon the rabbi took his disciple to the banks of the river Vltava, to form a figure in the shape of a human out of clay. As they had completed, they circled the figure seven times, while they were saying a weird magic formula. It stayed non-expressive, but its eyes gleamed red & intensely like fire. The golem had come to life. 

The golem obeyed rabbi Loew. When the rabbi had an order for the golem he put a piece of parchment with the name of God written on it under his tongue* to awake the creature.

Most of the time the golem was told to patrol the streets in & around the ghetto to prevent attacks on Jews or to stop people who transport the dead body of a child into the ghetto. But after a certain time the golem turned evil. It killed people haphazardly & destroyed everything that crossed his way. The king begged the rabbi to stop the golem. In return he promised not to offend the Jewish community again & rabbi Loew accepted. He performed the same ritual as in the creation of the golem, but in reverse order* & therefore destroyed the golem.

The remains of the golem were stowed in the attic of the Old New Synagogue in Prague. And ever since then it is forbidden to anyone to enter this attic. It is said, that until these days the remains of the golem are still hidden there.

 

Old New Synagogue in Prague

*There are some slightly different versions about this legend of rabbi Loew and the the golem of Prague. Another version of the legend says that rabbi Loew wrote the Hebrew word 'emet' - truth - on the forehead of the golem to bring it to life. To destroy the golem he erased the first letter of this word, so it said 'met', the Hebrew word for dead.

The golem is a creature that originates from a very old Jewish legend. It is said that a golem is made out of clay & is brought to life by particular incantations. It obeys his master's orders, but hasn't any own understanding. In fact it can not even talk. This creature is reckoned to be very strong and has powers which are not known. The inherent nature of this creature makes it quite dangerous. As told in the narrative above the golem went wild & spread terror among the inhabitants.

I looked up the word “golem” (hebr. גולם ) on several web pages, but didn't find a particular translation. The best explanation for the word is this one:

"In Hebrew, "golem" stands for "shapeless mass." The Talmud uses the word as "unformed" or "imperfect" and according to Talmudic legend, Adam is called "golem," meaning "body without a soul"" (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Golem.html )

In the Jewish narrations the golem acts as a protector of the Jews, but because of the antisemitic attitude the golem is widely known as a dreadful creature. Many novels, films & the like are based on the narrations of the golem. I found a really old one on youtube. It's a silent film of 1920 about rabbi Loew & his golem.