Photo: Libor Vaďura, with permission/People also buy traditional sausages on holidays
INTERVIEW: Customers stop saving during pre-Christmas shopping. “On holidays, people also buy more expensive things. We only have organic beef, but we still have a large number of orders,” Libor Vaďura, owner of a family butcher shop and charcuterie in the Old Town near Uherského Hradiště, told the PrahaIN.cz server.
In addition to beef, all types of poultry are for sale, and there is said to be great interest in high-quality hams and cheeses. “We have registered that this year, before the holidays, our customers are ordering beef to an extreme extent. We only have organic beef, which is a bit more expensive, but there is still a lot of interest. Some people buy pork leg, and many customers also buy seasoned cheeses and various hams for the holidays. Of the poultry, they clearly buy the most turkeys, but also geese and ducks,” Libor Vaďura told PrahaIN.cz editors.
Carp and roast goose
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Slovácko has always been famous for its traditional folk specialties. During the holidays, food was never spared here, and the festive tables were always very rich. A number of traditional dishes had a symbolic meaning. On December 24, soup made from dried mushrooms, potatoes and cream, as well as the famous sorrel, were served. Kuba cooked with groats, garlic and mushrooms was eaten as a Lenten meal. Another traditional food on Christmas Day was opékance, small baked buns sprinkled with poppy seeds and sugar. In the evening, baked carp or black carp was eaten as the main course. Fried carp with salad came much later. On December 25, lunch and dinner were very festive, and usually either a roasted fattened goose or a duck with cabbage and dumpling appeared on the tables.
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Tradition
Homemade sausages and butcher specialties were eaten even during the holidays. The master butcher confirms that this is still true today. “Here, people still have a lot of patience for traditional things. Before Christmas, they buy a lot of sausages, sausages, intestines and bacon. We offer our family specialty. It is prepared from bacon using the traditional method in an old, classic smokehouse. It is first cured in salt, garlic and spices for three weeks. Only then is the bacon prepared and then it is in the smokehouse for nine hours. This is our family recipe, which is more than sixty years old. We prepare bacon according to our grandfather’s recipe. We try to prepare everything we offer to our customers according to proven recipes and procedures. This is the basis for high-quality home-made sausages. We also prepare chicken and pork rolls and beef from the recipes we inherited from my grandmother and great-grandmother,” the butcher described to us.
Chemicals instead of sausages
The master butcher is proud of his craft, so he sometimes feels sad when he sees what some chain stores have to offer. They say these things have nothing to do with sausage products. “It’s terrible what’s happening in the shops. I don’t want to exaggerate and slander anyone, but as someone who has worked in the sausage and butcher trade for many years, I can’t keep quiet about some things.
In my opinion, what is sometimes offered and sold to people in some hypermarkets and supermarkets is a crime. And also what some companies produce and supply. These are not sausage products, these are chemicals that poison people. Just look at their composition and you can see what all the manufacturers are able to mix into it. People then buy it, perhaps because of the price, and consume it. This is incredible. Then customers come to our store and bring us the so-called bacon from the supermarket to see what happened to it in just two days. I understand that it is a business for someone. But we don’t want to go down this road, and we never will. I’d rather close the shop,” concluded Libor Vaďura.
