🇨🇿 The cattle breeds of the Czech Republic

Cattle appear on the Czech table mainly as beef in broths, tripe soup and the slow onion stew guláš, while their milk becomes cream sauces, butter and fried pub cheese. Pork and poultry lead the national diet, so cattle play a supporting part in a cuisine shared with Slovakia, Hungary and Austria.

• Pork dominates the Czech plate; beef is a supporting meat.
• Guláš, a beef or pork stew, is served with bread dumplings.
• Svíčková pairs beef fillet with a carrot and cream sauce.
• Smažený sýr is fried Edam-type cheese served with tartar sauce.
• Czech eating has shifted towards more dairy, fruit and vegetables.

Cattle in the Czech Republic

Cattle keep a modest place at the Czech table. Pork is the country's most eaten meat, accounting for more than half the meat consumed, so beef arrives as a supporting player: in the broths behind noodle soup, in tripe soup, in the oniony stew guláš and in festive svíčková. Milk and cream are more visible than the animals themselves, thickening sauces, enriching soups and coating cheese before frying. Sitting at the crossroads of Central Europe, Czechia shares these habits with its neighbours. Guláš has close cousins in Hungary's gulyás and pörkölt, řízek is coated in flour, egg and crumbs much like Austria's schnitzel, and Slovak foods such as bryndza cheese spread into Czech kitchens during the shared Czechoslovak years. Beef is everyday eating rather than a breed-show culture.

Milk, butter and beef

Dairy leans savoury. Cream thickens the svíčková sauce, the dill sauce koprovka and the mushroomy South Bohemian soup kulajda, while sour cream enriches the Wallachian kyselica. Butter crowns boiled potatoes and homemade noodles with poppy seed. Cheese of an Edam type is battered and fried as smažený sýr, or pickled with herbs in pubs. Beef supplies the restaurant broths, the tripe soup dršťková, made with beef or pork tripe, and dishes such as guláš and sekaná meatloaf; some soups swap its meat for oyster mushrooms. Dairy's share of the diet has grown as Czechs eat more fruit and vegetables.