Watched an episode of “No Reservations” last night in which Bourdain explored Prague, in the Czech Republic. It came up on multiple occasions that decades of eastern-bloc communism “ruined” the old Czech food culture, and that what was there when the show was filmed (2010) was nothing like what existed before WW2.
So why did communism ruin the old Czech food culture?
I would guess by collectivizing the agricultural production and distribution and thereby reduce the variety of readily available ingredients, but I’m not Czech and grew up in Western-Europe. I expect restaurant culture was also so-so under communism.
It seems that Prague had a thriving café culture before Communists came to power.
"Café Louvre in Prague is a Parisian style café and billiard hall dating from 1902. They proudly declare themselves to be the crowning jewel of Prague café culture.
This fine establishment is certainly a popular and pleasant place to while away a few hours, with a coffee and cake, or over a game of billiards with a cold beer…
But in 1948, as a ‘bourgeois’ institution, the Louvre was forcibly closed when the communists came to power. And then served various administrative purposes before liberation led to its revival in 1992."
http://pragueexperience.com/places.asp?PlaceID=403
There’s a sniffy online review of another joint in Prague where the reviewer sneers about how you won’t like it if you have “bourgeois pretensions”, so I guess there are people nostalgic for Communist bloc food culture.
The Czech government in the 1960s published a standardized cookbook; if an individual restaurant or school cafeteria or worksite canteen wanted to deviate from the “approved” recipes, they had to obtain special permission from the government, rarely granted. Coupled with collectivization and import restrictions on what ingredients were even available, that meant that almost nobody ate anything outside of those 845 dishes for a couple of decades.
I assume someplace like Vienna would be comparable. And Vienna’s food scene is pretty vibrant.
As did Budapest. Not so much afterwards, probably for all the same reasons. Now, 30 years after the Iron Curtain came down, it’s coming back.
This link was extremely comprehensive and helpful in understanding the food history of Prague and what decades of communist rule did to it; thanks for posting it.
In the late 90s, early 00s, I would say there already was a pretty vibrant coffee culture in Budapest. I thought during the cold war there were still cafes like Hungaria Cafe (renamed version of the famous New York Cafe) still operating and drawing artist types. But, yeah, it sure doesn’t sound like it was bustling like back in the 1920s or so.
Reminds me of the 1980s era commercial for the Wendy’s fast food chain, portraying a Soviet fashion show.
So did other communist states (especially those of eastern Europe/USSR) crush local food cultures the same way it happened in Czechoslovakia?
Communism didn’t set out to crush local food cultures, but it created a number of severe economic constraints that limited the variety of people’s diets.
All of Eastern Europe and the USSR was affected, but not uniformly… And certainly the quality and availability of local cuisine improved a lot between the 1950s and the 1980s. By the 1980s, you’d be able to get good-to-great local food in most Eastern European countries, as long as you had money.
I suggest checking out the Ushanka Show and Bald and Bankrupt channels on YouTube. While neither is specifically about food, they each have videos that portray what food culture used to be like in the Soviet Union and what it’s like now, respectively.
Aye; thanks much for posting that. I am very interested in the Czech Republic and learning more about it and the people who live there.
A very tongue-in-cheeki-breeki take on Slav cooking that usually involves hatchets and always includes hardbass can be found at the Life of Boris channel. Here he is teaching people how to make kvass:
I once bought a bottle of kvass at a nearby Russian market and brought it to a Dopefest. Nobody dared to try it.
One of the supermarkets I go to in Scarborough always has kvass in the cooler. It\s wonderfully refreshing in the summer, and I like to sit down with a bottle before I push off for home with my groceries.
In Russia, its available bottled year-round, and is served on the street from giant kegs in the summertime. There’s always a lot of foam, and the woman in charge will slap your hand if you try to top your portion off. (I know from experience.)
Thankfully, they now use disposable plastic cups instead of the communal glasses they used to rinse out and hand to the next customer.
A couple of years ago I saw B&B’s piece on Moldova (below), and it was sad to see how the place was struggling with economic depression and rampant corruption since the collapse of the USSR. I recall him talking to one old guy who said life there was better in the Soviet era, and I believed him.
Let’s not forget that Czechoslovakia had been occupied by the Germans for seven years right before the Communists came to power. The Nazis had instituted harsh food rationing in occupied Czechoslovakia. So culinary culture was already in a weakened state when the Soviets rolled in.
Seeing that the Nazis had a grand time slurping up French cuisine when they occupied Paris, I doubt they would have passed up the chance to glom onto fancy pastries and good coffee in Prague cafes. 
Coffee doesn’t grow in Europe; the blockades and supply disruptions meant it was effectively unavailable. Even in the cafes of Paris they were serving “coffee” made of roasted barley and chicory, or ground acorns and chickpeas. Meanwhile, butter, lard, eggs, and flour were all rationed, and you’re not making fancy pastries without these.
Further, in Prague there were limitations based on nationality: Germans were allowed to order foods that ordinary citizens could not.