Summer fruit

Hello and welcome to the ABC of Czech and its current series focusing on Czech food and cuisine. It is high summer now here in the Czech Republic, a time when all sorts of fruit are ripening and ready for picking.

So today we'll concentrate on summer fruit - letní ovoce and related vocabulary.

Gardens are full of colour now as various berries are just ready for picking. Most often you will find strawberries jahody, raspberries - maliny, less often blackberries ostružiny but a lot of redcurrants - červený rybíz and blackcurrants černý rybíz. Another traditional garden berry is the gooseberry - angrešt which now seems to be losing popularity. All those can be eaten fresh or preserved in various forms.

Summer is also the time of forest berries. Apart from raspberries and blackberries, there are borůvky - blueberries, which get their Czech name from the pine tree - borovice. They are abundant especially in higher altitudes and can be eaten fresh, sprinkled with sugar or preserved. And of course, there are wild strawberries - lesní jahody (which translates as forest or wood strawberries). They are a real delicacy with sugar and fresh cream.

August is also the only time when you can enjoy summer apples - letní jablka, small green apples which taste lovely and fresh but don't keep and often go bad when they're still on the tree. Generally, it's impossible to buy these apples, precisely because their life is so short. Even if they resist worms and fruit rot, they get floury soon - moučná jablka. You can only get them from your own or other people's garden and that's why their taste is so treasured and unique. It conjures up memories of summers spent in the countryside. These apples are sometimes called padavky from the verb padat - to fall because they fall from the apple tree before they are picked.

And that's it for today, thanks for listening and till next week dobrou chuť - bon appetit!