Food, cooking, eating out, national food, healthy eating

It is said that the Czechs and the Moravians love eating and they are able to talk about it a long time. In our country daily meals usually start with breakfast which consist of something to drink - tea, coffee, cacao etc. - and something to eat - bread, butter, cheese, eggs, but also fruit, cakes, cornflakes etc. The Czechs hurry with their morning cups of tea or coffee, or miss them at all, very often.

Around noon we have our lunch [1] which is usually warm and consist of some soup, a main dish [2], salad or dessert and something to drink. Most people go to a school, office or factory canteen but some of them prefer going to the restaurants or having a lunch in buffet or fast food (Mc’Donald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken etc.), buying some hamburgers, chickens, chips or pizza at street stalls [3]. Soups are mainly vegetable (potato, bean, celery, carrot etc.) or meat (beef, chicken, hen, goulash etc.).

The main dish is usually some meat or fish or poultry [4] with potatoes, rice, dumplings, pasta [5] or bread etc. The meat is usually of following kinds: beef, pork, veal [6], mutton [7], lamb [8] etc., and we can prepared it in various ways - roast it [9], grill it, boil it, bake it 7 or stew it [10]. Lot of people in our country eat rabbits, but also fish (carps, trouts, salmon, shark), poultry is things like chicken, hen, duck, turkey, goose etc. But the dish can be also sweet - e.g. fruit dumplings, fruit rice pudding etc. While cooking we may add various spices so that the meal will have a unique flavour - e.g. garlic [11], thyme, marjoram, curry, pepper, ginger [12] etc. After the main dishes we may drink lemonade, beer, juice, mineral water etc.

An evening meal can be warm or cold what depends on the time of the year very often. Cold and quick supper [13] may consist of some bread or pastry [14] (ban [15], twist [16], roll [17]) and some salami, butter, cheese etc. We can also cook some soup or have some dish from a tin. The Czech national meal is roasted pork, sauerkraut and dumplings, typical Czech meals are e.g. ‘Moravian sparrows’ (roasted pork) or roasted beef in sour cream and dumplings. Nowadays some people try to cook some kind of foreign (Chinese, Italian, Spanish) food and many families prefer to cook more healthy vegetable meals.
 
However the Czechs hurry with breakfast, the British often start with a cup of tea still in bed. Traditional British breakfast consist of a glass of fruit juice and cornflakes with milk. Of course they drink the morning tea or coffee. Big cooked breakfast morning meals are often called ‘brunch’ - breakfast and lunch together - and consisting of boiled or scrambled [18] eggs or fried bacon [19] and egg with bread. Lot of people like toasts with butter and marmalade or honey. About 1 o’clock there is usually lunch time in Britain. The British eating habits have changed over last thirty years - many families now prefer to eat out in restaurants or cafés. The typical British break time - teatime - is about 4 or 5 o’clock p.m. but nowadays it is more a social occasion than a regular meal-time. This 5 o’clock tea is usually fairly strong and eaten together with some cakes or biscuits.  About 6 o’clock most family have their evening meal - ‘dinner’. It may be cooked or cold as well as in Bohemia.

Typical British meal is pudding [20]. They have many kinds of puddings and the preparation of this meal usually last several weeks (or months). Especially Christmas pudding, made of eggs, chopped candied peel [21], mixed dried fruit and shredded suet [22], and finally poured over by strong brandy and lighted, belongs to the famous British speciality.

[1] lehký (přesnídávkový) oběd
[2] hlavní jídlo - stejný význam má ‘dinner’
[3] stánky
[4] drůbež
[5] hovorově „těstoviny“ (z italštiny)
[6] telecí
[7] skopové
[8] jehněčí
[9] opékat - péci; Britové tento rozdíl dosti striktně dodržují
[10] dusit
[11] česnek
[12] zázvor
[13] večeře
[14] pečivo
[15] žemle
[16] houska
[17] rohlík
[18] míchaný
[19] uzená slanina
[20] nejen ve smyslu „pudink“, ale především obecně jako „nákyp“ - může být i slaný
[21] kandovaná ovocná kůra
[22] krájený lůj