Little fish, big fish

Summer is a time of seaside holidays for many Czechs but those who stayed home can enjoy a taste of the sea in their kitchen.

Fresh fish isn't very popular in Czech cuisine (perhaps with the exception of the Christmas carp), but there is a whole range of tinned, pickled and marinated fish products that have been popular here for centuries. In the old days salted fish - slanečky - used to be imported in big barrels from the Baltic and Adriatic Seas and sold in pubs as snacks.

And pubs are where pickled fish are served to this day as their salty and sour taste goes well with beer.

One of the favourite ones are matjesy - chunks of matjes herring in a salt and vinegar marinade, originally a Dutch specialty. Then there's zavináče - roll mop herring - the name coming from the verb zavinovat - to roll up. Their meat is firmer and rolled up around a piece of onion and there is more vinegar in the marinade. If the fillets aren't rolled they are simply called kyselé rybičky - little sour fish.

Very popular are smoked fish - uzenáče - from the word uzený or smoked. Very often they are local freshwater fish and can be eaten as they are or the meat can be mixed with fresh cheese to make a lovely-tasting spread.

A tinned version are uzené šproty - smoked sprats. They are smaller than uzenáče and come in a can swimming in oil. In the communist days they used to be imported from the Soviet Union and sometimes they were hard to get. Then there are sardinky - sardines - the word can used in the same metaphorical sense as in English - to describe too many people crammed in a small space.

One of the few sea fish products available here in the communist days was cod liver - tresčí játra - usually served spread on a slice of bread. Cod liver is not eaten here as a medicine. Children used to be force-fed cod-liver oil but the last time was sometime in the 1950s.

Quite an old-fashioned fish product is sardelová pasta - anchovy paste. It is still popular with some people and you can regularly buy it in supermarkets.

Gaining on popularity is tinned tuna fish - tuňák - in all its varieties.

There are many more pickled fish products on the Czech market now but those we have listed are probably the ones you can most often find on a Czech table. Till next week dobrou chuť - bon appetit!