Restaurants

(Reviews Resume In January 3 Issue)

Every year as Christmas approaches, vendors set up at busy street corners across Prague. They sell live carp to families eager to follow the Czech Christmas tradition of boney fish and potato salad.

Some city residents even sacrifice showers to keep their holiday carp alive in the bathtub for several days before Christmas—or so I’ve been told.

I never stooped to pry into neighbors’ tubs, or to try the country’s most typical celebratory meal. For some reason an oily fish my dad urged me to toss on the bank when we caught one from a stream that ran through our property hardly captured the season’s spirit. But the Czechs obviously felt otherwise.

Every Judeo-Christian culture sets aside specials dishes for the holiday. Wandering the Christmas market in Nuremburg’s old square, one can order white sausage from several crowded stands. They are mild, with an intricate lacing of earthy spice lurking under the meaty savor—and yes, one can order them at other times. Sizzled on the spot under steel gray December skies between rows of bright stands, however, the sausages issue warmth and satisfaction.

There are many seasonal specialties that linger in my memory. One Christmas in Lithuania I sipped great spoonfuls of poppy flavored milk, part of their age-old 12 course holiday meal. Though it’s an easy thing to create, the experience is difficult to define. I happily order Jamaican curry goat at any time of year. And the tamales prepared during the month of December for Mexican carts and restaurants are rich, oozing, creamy and dusky, all at the same time.

A few seasonal dishes double as famous “I dare you” challenges. Lutefisk—common in Norway and Finland—is perhaps the most obvious from this genre: whitefish cured in lye until a gelatinous texture and intense, tear-inducing odor develops. In south-central Europe, you can try out a plate of pork and parts cooked in a pig’s stomach. Since I’ve already survived haggis, however, I see no personal need to face this particular challenge.

British Christmas pudding has yet to catch on here, perhaps because of the suet.

As Charles Dickens wrote in A Christmas Carol: “Oh! That smell! The same as the one which prevailed on washing day!...Now one would imagine oneself in a restaurant and in a confectioner’s at the same time, with a laundry next door. Thirty seconds later, Mrs. Cratchit entered, her face crimson, but smiling proudly, with the pudding resembling a cannon ball.”

Of course, we kick fruitcake around. But if you’ve ever tried a fruitcake from, say, Collin Street Bakery, it might change your mind about the ridiculed treat.