Czechs have just one word for both kitchen and cuisine - kuchyne.  Czech cuisine is very Central European: a lot of red meat, very little fish, lots of boiled vegetables, and boiled potatoes, stews, thick sauces and high carbohydrate stodgy side dishes.   An example is the Czech national dish - the traditional vepro knedlo zelo - or pork, dumplings and cabbage. It's a dish of fatty roast pork, boiled cabbage or sauerkraut and bread dumplings - extremely popular and probably very bad for you.
 

The man in the white hat is kuchar or cook.  To fussy eaters Czechs say Hlad je nejlepsi kuchar - hunger is the best cook, if you like.  A female cook is kucharka.  The word also means a cookery book. If you ever come to this country and fall for Czech food, you should look for a Ceska kucharka or Czech cookery book in the shops or you can ask the cook for a recept - that's a recipe.

Czechs eat three main meals a day. Snidane is breakfast and usually consists of a cup of tea or coffee and a sweet bun or a bread and butter sandwich.  There's usually too little time for a cooked breakfast, or snidane na  vidlicku, literally breakfast on a fork.  Obed, the mid-day meal is the main meal while vecere - the evening meal - tends to be lighter. A hearty dinner - which is usually the mid-day meal -obed - consists of several courses. Predkrm is the starter or horsd'oeuvre, then comes polevka or soup followed by hlavni  chod - the main course. If there is still room in your stomach after all that, you can order zakusek or dessert.

Czechs also like to say Laska prochazi saludkem - or the way to man's heart is through his stomach.

-Pavla Horakova
Radio Prague

Names of Czech Origin