HUNGRY GERALD

The Berlin Wall came down. The Soviets left Czechoslovakia and the Czechs had a gleeful taste of freedom. It was 1990…time for HG and Beautiful Sharon to visit Mittel Europa with Prague being the high point. We found Prague extraordinary. Untouched by the war and bombing, Prague retained a medieval atmosphere with stunning architecture and a great castle dominating the skyline. The Jewish Cemetery,  literally jammed with headstones, did seem the appropriate place for the birth of The Golem.  And, with its air of melancholy and mystery it was fitting that Prague was Franz Kafka’s hometown. Twenty years ago, Prague was a city of dingy store fronts featuring the worst of behind the Iron Curtain fashion displayed in a jumble of dust and disarray. Everything was laughably cheap. Street life was joyous, with musicians on every corner. Street style was odd. Men, from teens to middle age, favored short-short shorts, black socks and unspeakable local sneakers. Their appearance was not edifying.   HG feared, because of envious glances, that his Nikes might provoke a mugging. The food was inedible; the Czech menus impenetrable. Whatever we ordered we received brown stuff (pork? beef? lamb? dog?) covered with brown stuff (sludge? worse?). We didn’t starve. Old ladies sold steaming sausages on the street that were hearty and good. We encountered a delicious Prague custom. A window opened in an otherwise blank wall. A sign appeared: VAFFLES. Instantly a crowd gathered to buy sweet, crispy, very tasty waffles topped with lush whipped cream. Toward the end of our visit, we came upon a very chic Chinese restaurant run by Germans: CZINKY.  it attracted the city’s fashionistas and the cuisine reminded HG of
Brooklyn circa 1950. Quite good. We also went to the city’s ultimate gourmet heaven, a restaurant specializing in roast duck. It was in an unspeakably ugly structure built by the Communists (and this in a city of fairy tale buildings). The restaurant was vast, virtually unpopulated, tacky, dirty. Our slovenly waiter spent much of his time trying to seduce some local frump. After much shouting, the surly guy brought our duck (admittedly, rather good).  It summed up life under the Communists.  Waiting for our train to Berlin, HG visited the pay men’s toilet guarded by a stolid lady at a desk. “Pee-Pee? Kah-Kah?”, she inquired. The price varied, it seemed. A few years later son Jeremy spent his post college graduation year in Prague.  Between reggae DJ stints on radio (Vaclav Havel was a fan), Jeremy was a steady customer at a bar where he liked the Pilsener and beef roasted in “the Jewish style.” He suggested to the proprietor,  since there were many American and English tourists,  that the menu be translated into English. And, so Jeremy’s favorite dish soon appeared: ROAST JEW.