Czech Cuisine of South Bohemia, Kulajda, Carp and Cmunda - #PCČ1

Our Summer Journey Across Czechia Starts in the South

This summer, you do not have to cross any borders for good food. We are opening our Summer Journey Across Czechia and Moravia series, visiting one region every weekend and looking into its pots. We start where the cooking may be the most honest in the whole country, in South Bohemia.

Czech cuisine in these parts grew out of fishponds, forest mushrooms and potatoes. It is not a cuisine that shows off. It is the food of farmers, fishermen and gamekeepers, where nothing went to waste and every meal had to last a full day of work. That is exactly why it still tastes so good.

In part one we taste kulajda, carp and cmunda po kaplicku, and we suggest where to go if you want to get to know the Czech south on your own plate.

A Land of Fishponds and Carp

Say South Bohemia and most Czechs picture the Třeboň region. Hundreds of fishponds were dug here in the 16th century for the House of Rožmberk by the builder Jakub Krčín, and the largest of the ponds, Rožmberk, has a dam over two kilometers long. Carp from these waters is still sold under the protected Třeboň Carp label, and in the south it is a year-round ingredient, not just a Christmas duty.

Local pubs serve it fried with potato salad, pan-roasted in butter, with caraway, or in the dark sweet and bitter sauce of gingerbread, beer and dried fruit that was cooked at aristocratic courts centuries ago. Fish soup is not reserved for Christmas Eve either, it happily appears in July at village fishing festivals.

If you want to try the classics at home, start with carp in dark plum sauce. And if you prefer things simple, fried carp with potato salad works just as well in the middle of summer.

Kulajda, a Soup Full of Arguments

Few things divide a South Bohemian household as reliably as kulajda. With mushrooms or without? Dill at the end, or cooked from the start? Poached egg, or hard-boiled? Every village, and honestly every grandmother, has the one correct version and refuses to hear about the others.

The base is the same everywhere though. Potatoes, cream, dill, mushrooms from the nearest forest and a sour touch of vinegar so the soup is not bland. Kulajda could feed a family from whatever the garden and the woods provided, and that is exactly its charm. Today you will find it on the menu of almost every pub in the region, and at lunchtime it is the first thing to sell out.

Our kulajda with mushrooms and a poached egg keeps to the classic route. Just take care with the egg, the yolk should stay runny.

Cmunda po Kaplicku

Kaplice is a small town halfway between Český Krumlov and the Austrian border, and it entered Czech cookbooks with a single dish. Cmunda po kaplicku is a crispy potato pancake piled with braised sauerkraut and slices of smoked pork. It sounds simple, and that is exactly the point. South Bohemians have always known how to get the most out of a potato.

The word cmunda itself is the local name for a potato pancake. Around Pilsen the same dish is called vošouch, and in Czech Silesia stryk. It was the Kaplice version with sauerkraut and smoked pork that turned a plain pancake into a main course.

We prepared the cmunda po kaplicku recipe fresh for this part of the series, so your weekend menu is complete.

Where to Go When You Get Hungry

You can drive through South Bohemia in a weekend, but there is no point in rushing. Český Krumlov, with its bend of the Vltava river and a castle on the rock, ranks among the most visited places in the country, yet early mornings and evenings after the tour buses leave still have their magic. Deal with your hunger in one of the pubs off the main route, they tend to be cheaper and they cook for locals.

In Holašovice near České Budějovice stands a village green of rural Baroque houses listed by UNESCO. It looks like a film set, and yet people simply live there. Třeboň smells of fish and spa water, try the fried carp fries by the Rožmberk dam, and in Hluboká nad Vltavou combine a walk around the castle with lunch by the pond.

If you prefer walking, head to the Šumava mountains and the springs of the Vltava. And if you like a full trunk on the way home, the markets sell smoked fish, honey and mushrooms, fresh or dried depending on the season.

Next Stop, the Pilsen Region

South Bohemia proves you do not have to travel far for honest food. A pond, a forest and someone who knows their way around potatoes will do. If you head south this summer, tell us where the food won you over.

The Summer Journey Across Czechia and Moravia series continues next weekend. We turn west, to a region that cooks with beer and bakes the famous Chodsko wedding cake. Pilsen and West Bohemia, hold on to your hats.