Octopus Sausages

When the Czechs have a barbeque they tend to do it over wood rather than charcoal. Why use charcoal when wood is so plentiful? And besides cooking over a campfire has a certain appeal. It takes me back to my time as a girl guide – there is nothing that quite beats hot chocolate cooked in a smoke-blackened pot over a real wood fire, nor sausages with that smoky flavour.

The Czechs, like their neighbours the Germans, are great ones for sausages of all sorts, shapes and sizes. But sausages cooked over burning wood are special and there is a special process to follow in cooking them. First you cut some long thin branches of hazel and sharpen the ends. These are what you will cook the sausages on. Then you take the sausage and cut each end twice to form a cross of cuts. Each visitor places their sausage on the stick and sits by the fire with the sausage in the heat. As the sausage cooks the cut ends curl back to form four arms (eight in all) like an octopus on a stick. This process ensures that the sausages are heated all the way through, although English visitors, much to Czech amusement, still manage to blacken the sausages.

The very act of cooking the sausages forms a bond with your fellow diners. There is an immediate topic of conversation – an experience shared if you like. When my sisters came to stay, they had a great time preparing and cooking their sausages – the process is as much part of the fun as the finished product. Finally to eat add Czech mustard (so lovely my son eats it alone on bread and I have to take several pots over when I fly back to England) or horseradish sauce, and a chunk of Czech bread. An additional treat is some dough wound round a stick and cooked over the fire to create a sort of bread. I remember this from my Girl Guide Handbook or something similar but until I arrived here had never tried it. I must say it's okay but not spectacular, but then I think I am missing the point, the process is the thing, not the eating. Finally wash it down with a load of Czech beer and a few songs sung by the fire under the star-laden heavens and you will have had the time of your life.

Beer - Czech Breakfast - Yes?

The Czechs have a saying - "Beer makes men beautiful bodies." And if that is true Czech men are the most beautiful in the world - because the Czech Republic has the highest beer consumption per head in the world - one bottle every day for every man, woman and child.

The reason for this high consumption rate is possibly the low price of beer here - a bottle of Budvar will cost about 25p (10 kcs) in a local supermarket and maybe 50p (20 kcs) in a pub. The Czechs regard cheap beer as a birthright. No Czech government wishing to stay in power would dare increase the prices, so when the EU tried to raise duty on beer last year the Czech Government blocked the rise. The other reason is of course the quality. There are breweries all across the Czech Republic - the most famous of these are Pilsner Urquel (Plzensky Prazdroj), Gambrinus, Bernard, Kozel, Staropramen and of course our local Budvar.

Budvar for me means that I am getting near home. Ceske Budejovice, the nearest large town to our home, is the home of Budweiser Budvar - the real Budweiser and infinitely superior to the American stuff. You pass the brewery on the train from Prague, it is a sign to get your bags from the luggage rack and get ready. There is a large bottle, several floors high attached to the side of the brewery, so you shouldn't miss it.

That Czechs drink beer at any point of the day was brought home to us when we moved into our house. A gang of blokes turned up to move out the furniture of the family we were buying the house from about 7.00am. After an hour or so's hard work humping chunky furniture around they stopped and started looking for something. One came up to us and made a shape of a box in the air, we shook our heads blankly. Suddenly there was a shout and someone appeared carrying a crate of beer. Bottles were cracked open and they began to drink. The leader came up to my husband and offered a bottle - in broken English he said "Beer - Czech breakfast. English breakfast - whisky and soda, yes?"

Our favourite Czech beers are Gambrinus and Bernard. I am particularly fond of the Czech dark beer, which English drinkers will be less familiar with. Dark beer according to another Czech saying is meant to increase the size of a woman's breasts. I don't know if that is true, but it is certainly worth trying before you resort to surgery!