Hami! is Czech for Yummy!

One of the first things that you come in contact with in a new country is food. It does not take long before you have to suck it up and walk down to the market. During the summer this is not such a trick, but if you arrive in the fall or early winter the odds are against you. The reason being is the selection of fresh fruits and vegetables in northern climates are significantly reduced.

Czechs eat offal meats and I knew it, I had to be extra careful. Anything that smells like pee being cooked should be avoided. It was several months of trips to different potravíny (groceries) before I would venture into canned things and or things that did not have pictures on the labels.

Pictures on the label’s that is the key, you are thinking. I am afraid not, in this day of hyper marketing and photo sales, it is not always so easy to figure out if a tyčinky, is a cue-tip, a cereal bar or a part of a piece of fruit from the package. Yeah, yeah, I did figure out the difference between them. Only after many months did I figure out what a tyčinky was from an advertisement. The question remains, what you are getting in a can of “pork pieces” or “corn crispies”. Neither of which I am brave enough to try.

When I met Verča, some things became a million times easier. She still does not realize how helpful she is. No, she does not help with money or with things; that was never her role. Her role is to show me how to be more Czech. She is part mom, friend and adventure partner. When she came in that morning with a bowl of soup and told me “I won’t eat it.”, but hands it to me, I should have been concerned.

I am glad that in my many years of cooking I am familiar enough with most animal anatomy to realize that the lovely tasting soup had a dark side. The tang was not that of sausage. It had a lovely broth that went great with Šumava bread, still the things floating in the soup were troubling. As I continued to eat the vegetables and drink the broth the large piece of white flesh floated to the top of the soup. It looked like some sort of packing material came up in my spoon. Always thinking of myself as the adventurous type, I put it in my mouth. There is no mistaking the taste and the feeling in your mouth of tripe. It has the same effect on me as liver, skin grows cold, and galvanic skin response goes through the roof until I can eject the piece however forcefully from my mouth.

I remember I brought my bowl back out to the kitchen. There was mom standing there smiling. I said “Hamí”. She smiled and laughed when she saw there were just the bits of stomach left in the bottom of the bowl. I do not think leaving the tripe in the bowl was seen as bad taste. Mamka was obviously testing my Czechness. Even Slovak moms play jokes on me.

Czech food is quite tasty. Accusing it of being spicy is an overstatement. I do not think that I will ever acquire the taste for smažený syr, fried cheese with tartar sauce. I have tried it, it is pretty good just a bit too much mayonnaise for me. Fresh Šumava bread with garlic and onion butter is tasty with some porek, leek sliced on top. Czech cheesy potato salad with slanína, bacon, and řízek is really good after working outside all day. A large plate of gulaš with pepper rings and onions with knedlik can hit the spot in cold weather.

I do have a hypothesis about some of the seasoning technique used by mom’s in Czech. It is not that they do not like spices, nor is it that they are not available. They eat lots of pickled peppers and pfeferonký, spicy peppers. They obviously like spice to “kick it up a notch”. I think that over the centuries Czechs have learned how to cook, so if it does not come out right it can be covered by the taste of the beer. After three or four pints, even I could finish the tripe soup.