Cooking & Baking
Related: About this forumThe Communist Cookbook That Defined Prague's Cuisine
For years, one book dictated how and what people could eat.
In the newly independent Czech Republic of the 1990s, cheap comfort foodsuch as goulash, pork knuckle, and dumplingsdominated every eatery. Meanwhile vegetarians were encouraged to feast on fried cheese and stewed cabbage. (The late Anthony Bourdain famously called it the land vegetables forgot in an episode of his travel show No Reservations.) For the most part, tourists loved Prague in spite of the food rather than because of it. But Czechs didnt understand the criticism. After 40 years of communism, the culinary splendor that once dominated Czech culture was a distant memory due, in part, to one very specific cookbook.
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The cookbooks authors, Frantiek Syrový and Antonin Nestával, were relatively well-known chefs at the time (Nestával had even represented Czech gastronomy at the 1967 Montreal Expo). But the book emphasized limiting food imports and cooking economically, so it didnt include anything you might expect to try at a culinary competition. Nutrition was also a core component of the book: The idea was that the the better-balanced peoples meals were, the harder people would work. In the book, calorie count and vitamin details were listed alongside ingredients and instructions, and certain recipes were suggested for certain professions. Portion sizes were designed by the hundreds, indicating that select dishes were to be cooked in large quantities each day.
Cooks that wanted to deviate from these recipes had to get approval from the Ministry of Health, a request that could take years to go through. Most people opted for the easier route, which is how thousands of nearly identical menus came to be established across the country. Paired with limited ingredient diversity, the nation suffered a creative drought: It wasnt just that all the same dishes were served, but the dishes were prepared exactly the same way, resulting in identical versions of dishes, too. Each bite was calculated as a means of productivity, and dining for pleasure was considered extravagant. Special meals were no longer considered, and the scope of Czech cuisine shrunk.
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https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-pragues-food-like?utm_medium=atlas-page&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR0F62oX5TxoNk6v1tPnbxjZZp18LwYs6riKtLp4LBsdQnAPzs3DrEQlYbo
SCantiGOP
(13,869 posts)No more: What do you want to eat tonight? I dont know. What do you want to eat?
Want to go out? Yeah. Where you want to go? I dont know, where do you want to go?
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)their version of what comes in those 20-gallon containers of sauce slopped on everything.
Our list is much shorter because getting serious about home cooking has ruined for us most of the chain options in our "Ruby Tuesday" price range. When friends drag us to one, I look for the simplest preparations and ask "no sauce, please" just in case they glob something undisclosed on or in.
Thanks, No Hypocrisy. Fun read, and you also reintroduced me to Atlas Obscura. I'd forgotten about it.