Snack Time!

After a brief detour to mangle the Czech alphabet, we're back at food with a virtual tour of the Czech snack food aisle. While a few brand names or styles will be familiar to readers from Western Europe or the Americas, most Czech junk food items were new to me when I moved here. As the kind of person who makes a point of trying local chips, cookies, and sodas when I visit new places, I've been rather overwhelmed by the sheer number of new tastes to explore. I haven't tried all of these--yet--but it's only a matter of time. If you'd like to watch me try some of the more "exotic" ones for a video blog, let me know in the comments!

Anyway, we'll start with...

Soda

Kofola

The one truly native Czech soda that is widely available is Kofola.

From left to right: lemon, sugarfree, original, vanilla, and walnut. Yes, walnut.

Kofola was created in the late 1950s in Communist Czechoslovakia as a way to use the excess caffeine produced during the coffee roasting process. They turned this byproduct into a syrup--Kofo--added some other flavors and made it a soda. It swept the nation, largely (entirely?) due to the fact that American sodas like Coke and Pepsi were not available. Kofola is not as sweet as Czech Coke and Pepsi, but, unsurprisingly, it has significantly more caffeine. It's now avilable in a variety of flavors (including the above seen walnut), but it is always unmistakably Kofola. It's also cheaper than its American rivals, but man, did I not care for it. Maybe I'll go truly native one day and start loving this stuff, but that day has not yet arrived.

Fanta

Classic orange, blue, diet orange, and white grape. The blue is "shokata"--elder flower. 

If Kofola isn't to your taste, Coke and Pepsi products are pretty widely available, both at stores and restaurants, though they are significantly less sweet and seemingly less fizzy than their American counterparts. The soda that, to my taste buds, actually improves from these changes is Fanta. While the other Fanta varieties shown above are available, it's the standard orange Fanta that is the most popular. It actually tastes more like orange and has a--dare I say it?--more nuanced flavor profile.  It's not uncommon to see young men guzzling Fanta straight from a 1.25L bottle which, for some perverse reason, sometimes sells for less than the individual 500 mL bottle.

Verdict?: If you're a general soda lover, like I am, you'll be fine here, as there is a variety of brands and types to prevent you from getting bored. However, if, like some people, you love ONE type of soda (Diet Coke, for example), you might struggle here, as even the familiar brands don't taste that familiar.

Cookies (Approximately)

There are a number of varieties of Czech packaged sweets that could, broadly, be thought of as cookies. But, for the most part, they're not American cookies--they're more British biscuits. Which, for this American, is okay...usually. But those days when I want a soft, chewy chocolate chip cookie? I'm just going to have to re-learn to make those myself (and how to get chocolate chips, which are not that common here).

However, if I want a spa wafer (!?), I am living in the right place.

Lázeňské oplatky (Spa wafers)

Like a communion wafer, but giant, intricately designed, and sweet!

Did you know the Czech Republic has a number of towns famous for hot springs and the like? It's true! Originally sold as street food for the posh folk taking the waters at the various resorts--hence the name spa wafers (lázeňské oplatky)--these lightly sweetened, crisp, highly decorated wafers quickly became popular and are now available in pretty much every store. The classic recipe was just sweetened with sugar sprinkled on top, but they now come in your basic flavors of chocolate, vanilla, and hazelnut. 

I have to imagine this box is at least 50% wafer shards.

Dating back several hundred years, Czech spa wafers are as traditional as Czech Pilsner. Indeed, Czech spa wafers are the Czech equivalent of Walker's Shortbread in Scotland--it's the snack you buy at the airport for everyone back home as proof that you went somewhere. Even though they're widely available pretty much everywhere.

Have I tried them? No. Because I tend not to like overly thin, crispy cookies, and they're not as cheap as you might expect. Cheaper, though not "proper" spa wafers, are the wafer cookies you might find in America consisting of wafers layered with flavored fillings. These are just as mediocre here as in America, which is oddly comforting.

Medový perník (Honey gingerbread)

Czech gingerbread, or perník, is pretty much what you find elsewhere--a hard cookie, suitable for building, it has a long, long tradition in this part of Europe and is taken very seriously, especially around holidays like Christmas and Easter.

The city of Pardubice has even registered its special gingerbread recipe with the EU, so if you see
someone else trying to sell Pardubický medový perník, alert the authorities.

However, there is also the softer, more cake-like medový perník: a honey based gingerbread (unlike American gingerbread which uses molasses) that is sold kinda like a Little Debbie. Layered with fruit jams, and then coated in chocolate or yogurt, they're remiscent of a Jaffa Cake (also widely available here) with a more complex flavor profile. They're not my favorite thing, but that's mainly because of the jam--I've never been a jam guy. (No, I won't make the terrible jam/jam pun, but you're welcome to.)

Verdict?: As with soda, how you feel about cookie culture here will largely depend on what sort of cookies you enjoy. If you love Oreos, for example, they are available, but they're expensive and not as widespread. As I said, chocolate chips feature rarely, and soft, chewy cookies are also uncommon. But the various crunchy biscuits, butter cookies, spa wafers, and medový perník should go nicely with your afternoon tea.

Chips and Crisps, et al.

Not surprisingly, in a country that loves their potatoes, potato chips (brambůrky) are the most common snack food, taking up the majority of the aisle with different brands, shapes, and flavors.

Here, Bohemia brand chips advertises that they have new packaging--v novém balení.Exciting!

The most common flavors are generally familiar, especially to lovers of British crisps: salt, cheese, cheese and onion, bacon, etc. There are also more exotic flavors like špíz, which is something like a chicken skewer flavor, but which literally means "pantry" in Czech, špíz being a Slovak word for "skewer." I can't tell you how much that confused me at first.

Paprika

However, the most common flavor, found at every price point from every brand on almost every snack, is paprika.

Tesco's store brand. Pretty tasty!

Tesco's discount store brand. And yes, you can taste the difference.

These are all, as a rule, *delicious*. The combination of sweet and smoky flavors from the paprika is perfect for snacking, and it pushes many of the same taste buttons as barbecue chips do in America. Paprika chips are pretty widely available throughout central and Eastern Europe, I hear, so one hopes it's only a matter of time before they make it back to America so you can all share in my delight.

Golden Rings and "Crackers"

"Golden Rings" that look tennis rackets, flavored with ham. Sure!

Golden rings, as these "crackers" are called, are pretty much extruded potato starch formed into shapes. The plain variety have so little flavor that I wondered if my taste buds had all died. The flavored varieties are better, but they still have a weirdly insubstantial quality to them that is reminiscent of packing material--like discount, store brand Funnyuns. Not, like, terrible, but a little off-putting. However, that is nothing compared to...

"Maybe we should try to make these look appetizing in any way?" "Nah!"

These "crackers" are what happens when you take the already bland Golden Ring, strip out all joy, and knock a few Kc off the price. It's possible they're popular in certain situations, or with certain audiences--like very old people for whom flavor could be fatal--but to me, they just feel like a weird hangover of the Communist Era: a snack food so blah, that the greatest pleasure they give you is when you stop eating them. In that way, they're the perfect snack for someone on a diet.

Also available are various stick type things (pretzels, potato sticks, cheese sticks, etc.), peanuts, some *actual* crackers, and even some attempts at Doritos and tortilla chips. These last are perhaps best avoided until you've forgotten what real Doritas and tortilla chips taste like. 

Verdict?: Unlike America, where the gulf between really, really cheap chips and standard priced ones isn't that large, quality-wise, here, I think it pays off to splurge a little for the nicer brands. Fortunately, the price differential isn't that great unless you go really high end. That said, if you just enjoy your mindless crunching while you watch Netflix, you're sure to find your niche at any price point.

N.B.: There is, I should mention, a chain here called The Candy Store, which specializes in importing and selling American and British foods, especially snack foods and candy. I haven't visited yet, as I am trying to see how long I can hold out before I crack and need a taste of home. Also, unsurprisingly, the prices are crazy high, so it's more of an emergency store than an everyday store.

Next week, candy and chocolates! Unless someone suggests something or I think of something better!

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