In 19th-century Bohemia, the real meal is midday lunch, the oběd. It almost always begins with a polévka (soup), often based on sour cabbage or garlic, which warms and fills. Next comes the hlavní chod, the main course: roasted meat covered in sauce, accompanied by the inevitable knedlíky (poached bread dumplings, sliced) and zelí (fermented cabbage). In the afternoon, svačina brings a sweet treat — a koláč, a fruit-filled pastry. And Bohemian beer, light and golden, accompanies everything, from lunch to the evening tavern. This is a rustic, generous cuisine, made for hard-working eaters.

Two markers of the Czech table. Kmín (caraway seeds, not to be confused with cumin) flavors bread, sauerkraut, roast pork, and soups: it is the very smell of a Bohemian kitchen. And the knedlík, a leavened bread dumpling poached in water then sliced with thread, serves as a sauce sponge in almost every dish — it was on the childhood table of Dvořák in Nelahozeves as well as on that of the famous composer.