Christmas Eve in Bohemia
Christmas Eve around Hlinsko (Hlinecko)
Families around Hlinsko who could not get fish for Christmas Eve baked pastry “fish” in glazed earthenware moulds made by the potters of Svratka — small ones and large ones, the grandest a catfish from Holetín.
Meat stayed off the Christmas Eve table here until the First World War: yeast dough, mushrooms and pulses, cold dried-fruit sauces with vánočka, and yeast pretzels. The tree reached these villages only at the end of the nineteenth century; before that, rooms were decorated with large nativity scenes (betlémy).
Try it at home
Bake your vánočka dough — or a sweet bread — in the shape of a fish.
Part of Horácko (Bohemian-Moravian Highlands).
More Christmas Eves nearby
- Christmas Eve in the Highlands (Horácko)
- Christmas Eve in Chodsko
- Christmas Eve around Plzeň (Plzeňsko)
- Christmas Eve in the Šumava foothills (Pošumaví)
- Christmas Eve in Prácheňsko
- Christmas Eve in Doudlebsko
- Christmas Eve in Blata
- Christmas Eve in Kozácko (Tábor area)
- Czech Christmas Eve, hour by hour