Seitegeist/Aroma náměstí

Submitted by Fluxspiele on Thu, 04/14/2011 - 19:20
Street food and the scents of the square
Yesterday, on my way to class via the bright-red #5, a line supplied by the aged part of the fleet, I heard the already-quiet engine stop and suddenly the noise on the tram fell to a near-silent hush (Czechs are far more reserved than more boisterous Spaniards, for instance, or even iPod-enraptured strap-hangers.) We had begun the longest stretch of the commute (though it lasts maybe four minutes), alongside the Vlatava river, before crossing one of the many bridges that span it.  The tram driver hoped out, locked the door to his compartment behind him, and ran across the street to the front of what looked like an empanada shop where the proprietor was holding out a paper bag for him. He grabbed the bag and climbed back onto the train.  A moment later, we continued our journey down the river.

the tram stop (see how informative it is?) with brambory-holesovice in the backgroundThis type of casual moment is not unusual among the tram drivers in Prague.  During my first week, I was surprised that when one tram would pass another which was loading and unloading at a large stop, the driver would be reading the paper, snacking on a pastry or making a phone call.  Given the number of high profile light trail accidents that have happened recently in the States, this would never fly. I have yet to catch one of these events on film here in Prague, though.

Though the culture for street food here does not at all rival the diversity of New York’s many carts or the decadence of Vienna’s quality sausage and kabop stands, the offerings here in Prague have increased as the months pass. The highly aromatic smell of boiling kielbasa and ‘night sausage’ (as we’ve come to call it) are most highly concentrated on Wenceslas Square, where a number of nearly identical booths are permanently stationed along this inaccurately named quadrilateral (it’s a very long square), but smaller carts, one man operations with banners that read Eurohotdog are also found at other areas of the city: in front of the Tesco downtown, or by the larger metro stations peripheral to the touristy zones.

One of the Trdlo places in Old Town Square. Check out the ornamental trees!Even Old Town Square, normally a wide brick expanse, has become full of street food, but of a more antique variety.  In the days leading up to Mardi Gras, a series of dark wooden huts were built with spit-roasting hams, big pans of spatzle, skewers of sausages and vats of spiced wine all available (with significant markup for the tourists, mind you). The shacks came and went, though, within the span of a week they were gone again. Since Spring Break, a new, more extensive series of shops have been reconstructed - this time for Easter. There are even round pastries, rings of dough baked on thick metal cylinders in mid-air over a bed of coals.  The throw a nutty, cinnamon-spice scent out, and fittingly so, because they apparently are  a Slovak christmas desert –– but the crowds don’t need to know that.
   
This evening I arrived in Berlin. For those of you not in Mitteleuropa, it has been raining this past week. Prague, unfortunately, doesn’t take on any scent of petrichor (perhaps because of all the cobblestones?), but as soon as we climbed out of the U-Bahn station tonight, the smell, familiar from certain rainstorms in New York, was instantly discernable and made me a little nostalgic for home.

[photos are my own!]