Bohemia, Czech Republic

Czech Republic

Bohemia, the western half of today's Czech Republic, runs from the Šumava hills along the German border to the rolling farmland around Prague. Pork has been the centre of the kitchen here for centuries, and the zabíjačka — the autumn pig-slaughter day still kept in countless villages — is the calendar event that defines the country's sausage tradition. A family kills a single pig, the neighbours arrive at dawn, and by nightfall every part of the animal has been turned into something edible: smoked klobása, blood-thickened jelita, headcheese tlačenka, and the rice-or-barley pork pudding called jitrnice (jaternice in Moravia and Slovakia). Eat them with dark Pilsen-style beer, sauerkraut, dumplings, and the strong yellow Czech mustard that lives on every restaurant table.

Click to activate map

Sausages from Bohemia, Czech Republic

Jitrnice

Jitrnice

Bohemia, Czech Republic

A Czech-Moravian-Slovak country sausage of coarse-cut pork, pork offal, and a starchy filler — rice in Bohemia, barley further east — bound with garlic, marjoram, and black pepper, stuffed into pig casing and gently poached. The white version (bílá jitrnice) keeps the cooked pork pale; the black version (jelita) adds pork blood for a dark, dense pudding. Either is sliced thick into a hot pan, browned in lard for a few minutes per side, and served with sauerkraut, bread dumplings, and grated horseradish. The mandatory accompaniment of every Czech zabíjačka — the home pig-slaughter day kept across the Bohemian and Moravian countryside through autumn and winter.

porkczechoffal