Carp for Christmas

Carp--it's what's for dinner.

As is the case in every country with every major holiday, Czech Christmas has many traditions associated with it. Many of these have fallen by the wayside as time went on, such as one tradition which dictated that no candles or lights should be lit in the house until the first star was seen in the sky--I can only imagine how annoying that was. Others, however, are still very much part of the traditional family Christmas. Carp as the center of the Christmas meal is probably the most distinctive of these.

It's important to note that Czech Christmas festivities center entirely on Christmas Eve. Indeed, when Czech people say "Christmas," they often mean December 24th. The official meal is dinner on Christmas Eve, and presents are exchanged and opened right after dinner. Some families still go to Midnight Mass afterward, though that is much less common than in the past. Christmas Day itself is pretty empty of any sort of activity, as is the 26th, St. Stephen's Day, which is also recognized as a holiday. Many Czech families will take this time together to go skiing (both downhill and cross country--the Czechs are very fond of the outdoors) or simply to visit family they don't see that often.

But back to carp. Why carp? Well, carp has been cultivated in Bohemia, the portion of Czechia that contains Prague, for over 1000 years. Monks did so in the Middle Ages, and large scale carp farms were maintained by one of the noble families and those ponds still produce a large share of the nation's carp. So Czech people have a long-standed relationship with this pond-dwelling bottom feeder.

Starting a week or so before Christmas Eve, Czech wives and mothers (cooking in the home being essentially the sole province of women in Czechia) to buy their Christmas carp, from temporary stalls like the one above. After they pick just the right fish, they will take it home, where the carp will often live in the bathtub for several days, becoming a sort of temporary pet, as seen here.

The bathing situation varies from family to family, but I have certainly heard reports of people taking quick showers with a carp swimming around their feet. In recent years, many Czechs have decided they don't have the stomach for bludgeoning the carp (the traditional killing method), so many fishmongers now kill the fish for you. How kind.

Regardless, come Christmas Eve, the carp is usually prepared two ways: the starter is carp soup with potatoes and some vegetables, while the main course is fried carp with potato salad. That's not all--the carp scales are often put under the dinner plates, and finding a carp scale is supposed to bring good fortune in the coming year.

This is not to say that Czech people just loooove carp. They don't. Many people quite dislike it, actually. But it's tradition. And tradition, after all, is what separates holidays from every other day. They provide continuity to an otherwise chaotic existence. Every year, Czech people can look at the carp swimming in their bathtub, and know that some things remain the same.

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