Snacks and party food

Hello and welcome to the ABC of Czech and our current series focusing on Czech food and cuisine. Today we'll be looking at typical Czech party food.

Chlebíčky

Although parties in this country more and more resemble parties anywhere in the western world, including the food, in today's ABC of Czech we'll look at the traditional food served at Czech office parties, New Year's Eve celebrations, exhibition openings, conferences and similar types of events.

The one thing that can't be missing on a Czech party table is chlebíčky - literally "little breads". They are open-faced sandwiches but you don't use Czech dark bread but a special kind of very dull white bread, called veka - which comes in long sticks and for some reason always seems to be a day old. Also, veka is hardly ever used for any other purpose than to make chlebíčky.

Chlebíčky

Another compulsory ingredient is mayonnaise - majonéza. It's either used to make potato salad - bramborový salát or any other such salad that's often used to garnish the sandwich or there is a blob of mayonnaise sitting on it.

If ham or šunka is the prevailing garnish on the sandwich, then we are talking about šunkové chlebíčky. If its crab with lots of mayo, then it is humrové chlebíčky from the word humr - lobster. If there is more of the Czech brie hermelín - then they are hermelínové chlebíčky. There are of course salami varieties, sardine varieties or egg and caviar varieties and different kinds of spreads - pomazánka, from the word mazat - to spread. For example rybí pomazánka - fish spread and humrová pomazánka - crab spread.

Chlebíčky are such an institution in the Czech Republic that there are even specialised shops selling only those.

Another must on a party table are so-called jednohubky - cocktail snacks. The word suggests that they are only one bite each - jedna meaning one and hubky - from the word huba - a slang term for mouth. To make them you need fresh Czech white bread rolls - rohlíky. You slice them into round pieces the size of a bigger coin and then spread butter over them, garnish them with a slice of salami, a bit of smoked salmon, and top with an olive, for example. Finally, the whole thing is pierced with a toothpick which serves as a handle or fork.

Now you know what you can expect at a typical Czech party. Till next week, dobrou chuť, bon appetit!