A Czech Culinary Christmas
- Liliana Kotval
- Mar 2
- 6 min read
Updated: Mar 14
Liver ball soup, cutlets, and potato salad... a slavic treat.
By. Liliana Kotval
A Czech Christmas is not complete without some typical dishes: liver ball soup (polévka s játrovými knedličky), cutlets (řízky), and potato salad (bramborový sálat). Christmas is celebrated on the 24th of December in the Czech Republic, and typically, the food is home cooked during the afternoon and eaten in the evening with family. Presents for the children are brought by baby Jesus and are also opened that same evening. My father was born in Southern Bohemian in Czechoslovakia, and I grew up celebrating this Czech Christmas, and it was my favorite: I absolutely loved sitting around the cozy fireplace and then after dinner, going for a short walk outside to look for Santa in the sky. Of course, someone always had to stay back in the house to do the "cleaning up". Magically, after the walk, I came back inside to find piles of presents under the Christmas tree. The secret was out one year when, from the window, I clearly saw my dad's arm putting something under the tree.
Nevertheless, Christmastime is still a special time of the year for me, and I enjoy honoring the Czech culinary customs. Now, I love showing my niece and nephew these very customs my dad once so proudly showed me.
The traditional appetizer is a liver ball soup (polévka s játrovými knedličky). It may not sound too appetizing, however, I assure you, it is really delicious. The liver has a rich flavor, and it is all balanced by some garlic and parsley. The balls soak up a savory broth.
For the main course, a cutlet (řízek) is served. We cook a pork cutlet, but the most traditional one is from carp (kapr). Around Christmastime, in the Czech markets, you can find water tanks filled with live carp fish. Customers can buy the fish and take it home and keep it in a bathtub of water (yes, really!) until cooking on Christmas Eve, or the workers can filet and package the fresh fish for you there. It is not uncommon to walk into a Czech bathroom a few days before Christmas Eve and find a live carp in the bathtub. No showers for a little while!
Carp has been abundant in Bohemia since the medieval times, where monasteries built complex fishpond systems (ex. in Třeboň in Southern Bohemia). Fish is also not considered a meat, and as Christmas Eve was a day of fasting in Catholicism, meat was avoided. As for the potato salad (bramborový sálat), this concept came a bit later in history due to Austrian and German culinary influences during the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is made with carrots, peas, onion, ham, and lots of mayonnaise; this salad is decadent and delightful. The slavs know what they are doing when it comes to salads (okay, maybe the healthiness of the vegetables are offset by the fatty mayonnaise). See my recipe for bramborový salát here.
No Czech Christmas is complete without lots of alcohol and setting off some sparklers. Some other Czech Christmas traditions:
take a carp scale from the fish and place it in your wallet for good fortune
cut a star apple in half, and when cut, if a star shape is shown in the seeds, you will have good luck. This goes back to pagan winter rituals.
Other typical Czech Chrismas dishes include:
kuba: a peasant mushroom barley dish that dates back to pre-Christian winter solstice traditions. It is one of the oldest Christmas foods in the Czech lands.
vánočka: sweet Christmas bread that is braided. It dates back to the 14th century and was baked for the wealthy. It symbolizes baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling cloth.
cukroví: Christmas cookies. Since sugar became more accessible in the 19th century, Czech Christmas cookes have been made in a variety of flavors and forms: linecké (jam cookies), vanilkové rohlíčky (vanilla crescents), and perníčky (gingerbread).
To see what a Czech Christmas is like, I would really recommend the 1999 film Pelíšky (Cosy Dens). It is a historic comedy based in 1967-1968 Czechoslovakia, right before and at the beginning of the Prague Spring Soviet invasion. It is a cult classic, and can be easily understood with subtitles. It stars some of the most classic Czech actors: Bolek Polívka and Miroslav Donutil. Both hilarious and excellent in their roles.
Side note: another Czech film where both these actors collaborate again is called Dědictví (Inheritance) and is absolutely hilarious and equivocally Czech. It portrays a phenomenon that occurred as a result of the fall of communism, where the property that was evenly distributed among the state was released back to its previous owners. Some people became rich overnight, gaining ownership of houses once owned by their grandparents. Take a shot every time Polívka says kurva and you'll be passed out on the floor.
If you do not know the historic context of Czechoslovakia, the Prague Spring, and the Soviet invasion, long story short: Czechoslovakia (1918-1993) was formed after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of WWI. In 1948, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia took full control of the county and became a communist state aligned with the Soviet Union. The Czechs are a rebellious and courageous type, and many opposed the communist regime. There were many reformists and student protests. The people wanted economic and political liberation as a result of a failing economy. Throughout the springtime of 1968, reformist movements of the Pražské jaro (Prague Spring) angered the Soviets. The Soviets had enough of the Czech propaganda, and in August of 1968, Soviet tanks invaded Prague to crush the movement.
In 1969, a student named Jan Palach sadly took his own life in protest of the Soviet invasion by setting himself of fire in Václavské Náměstí (Wenceslas Square) in Prague. It was not until 1989, with the fall of the Soviet bloc, that the Czechoslovaks could finally free themselves of the Soviets.
In Pelíšky, you can see the opposing views of communism in Czechoslovak society as well as what happened once the Soviets invaded: many Czechs fled to other countries as political refugees. As a result, those that stayed behind in Czechoslovakia felt abandoned and lonely. My father did the very same thing: he and his parents went on "vacation" to Austria before escaping to the U.S. to start a new life. They never wanted to leave, however, they felt they had no other choice.
Today, we must be thankful for the democracy that we have and the freedoms we take for granted everyday. It wasn't always like this.
No wonder why my father's anthems were the songs of Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix, that came from places where music wasn't illegal and the freedom of speech was an inherent right.
Digressing back to Christmas, on Christmas Day (the 25th) morning, while all the American children are waking up at the crack of dawn to bug their parents to wake up so they can open the present that Santa brought down the chimney for them while they were sleeping, the Czechs are busy using up the leftovers of the potato salad. No, nothing goes to waste here.
And what an inventive way of doing so: making chlebíčky (which literally means "little breads"). Chlebíčky are made with a slice of white bread topped with a layer of potato salad, a slice of ham or salami, and with a sliver of egg, picked pepper, a pickle, a square of munster cheese, all garnished with a bit of paprika. It hits just right the morning after a night of heavy drinking.
Czech Christmas traditions are as much about family and warmth as they are about the food itself. From the rich flavors of liver ball soup to the sweet, delicate assortment of cukroví, every dish carries a story and a memory. Celebrating these customs today, whether with my niece and nephew or just in my own kitchen, keeps a connection to the past alive. It reminds me that holidays are not only about what’s on the table, but about the laughter, stories, and little rituals that make them unforgettable.
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