There are Czechs and there are “Czechs”. If you want to distinguish a true blue Czech, you have to be in the lookout for their bread preferences. A true Czech will always look for Chleba. Chleba is a sour dough rye bread, dark in color and moist. It has a distinct unique taste to it that is very different from any other bread.
Photo courtesy of ireceptar.cz
Through all those years that we have spent in the US, my husband never got satisfied with the kind of bread that was sold in the stores there. He was always saying that it is nothing like Chleba. Apparently, the same is true for some of the other Czechs that I know. My brother and sister in law, both Czechs, had to bake their own chleba from scratch when they lived in North Carolina. They missed it THAT much.
Well, I guess I know how it feels because in the many years that I lived outside of the Philippines, I still crave for rice. That is also our gauge for “Pinoy-ness.”
Czech the Flip 
Yes, Czech bread is really good. But it must be made in a traditional way (“kváskový chleba”), which means it must consist only of flours, salt, water and caraway. No yeast and no “Es” (éčka – urychlovače). It always amuses me when the composition on the package is long and takes several lines. That’s not a Czech bread then, the good, tasty, easy to digest, which doesn’t go mould.
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Thanks for the inputs!
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I miss real European rye bread so much. I would like to try to make it the right way (without the yeast). Do you have the recipe? I would be thrilled if you would share it.
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To be honest with you, I haven’t made one myself, but I will ask my husband’s relatives to share with me their recipe.
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THank you. I would appreciate that very much!
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I feel the same way…
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You must miss pan de sal too. 🙂
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It sounds like the bread I grew up with.
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Do you have Czech roots?
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No, but Latvia is not so far away. I think most of the European countries have similar bread.
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Aha. Yes, I think they do have similar bread. I saw the same one in Poland too.
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