Jans of Prague and the 1st defenestration

Walking through the Old Town in Prague, you’re in for an enrapturing experience. The old Baroque architecture, the winding alleys, the brutal crowds of gaping tourists. And this weekend on Sunday, when you come out to spy the secrets of the Astronomical Clock and take a selfie with a thousand other people, you might also notice a huge pile of wreaths stacked around the statue in the middle of the square.

Yeah? It’s Jan Hus Day. That statue, by the way, is Jan Hus, now considered a saint by the Orthodox, mainly because he bit his thumb at the Catholics.

Though it wasn’t really his intention. But you know what they say: the road to getting burned at stake is paved with good intentions.

Jan Hus

Before Martin Luther, before Calvin, before burning heretics was even a thing, there was Jan Hus, the man who would be the kindling of the Reformation (while many consider Wycliffe the match).

Jan was curious about why the regular folks couldn’t drink the wine at Church, that is, to take the Eucharist “in two kinds”. Back at that time, they’d just give the laity the bread, while the priest got the best bit of the service and downed the wine (the body and blood of Christ, respectively).

He was also spending a lot of time at the somewhat schismatic Bethlehem Church, led by yet another Jan, Jan Křiž, along with Hanuš of Mühlheim. It was a "preaching church", that is to say, non-sacramental, where the preaching would only be in Czech and not Latin.

Jan Hus

It was a weird time for the Catholic Church too. Back then, we had two popes! And the pope claiming authority over Prague was a real stickler and didn’t think much for people questioning things like sacramental distribution. So he kicked ole Hus out of the Church.

Which wouldn’t have been that big of deal, except that Hus was a priest and an exceptionally good orator. After this, he jumped off the Wycliffe and started preaching things like against plenary indulgences, kind of “get out of hell free” cards that the pope was dealing out to fund his own projects along with other anti-papal criticisms.

The birth of the Czech nation

The Biblical language at the time was Latin, while the political language of the Holy Roman Empire was German, as multi-ethnic as it was. Czech was slowly becoming the language of farmers and dull village folk, while the supposedly educated would speak in High German, so much so that by the 1800s (long after this) Czech German was considered the highest scholarly German there was (this is not to say that everyone was speaking German, far from that, but rather concerning the attitudes towards the two). And in order to preach religion, you had to do it in the “Biblical language”, which was naturally Latin, since the Bible was written in Latin… oh, wait a second.

Latin was really just a power move by Italian and French ecclesiastics, whose languages remained very close to the Vulgate Bible that St. Jerome translated the Bible into. But we’re not really talking about that anyway.

So, Jan went to his roots. He went along with the Bethlehem folk and started speaking the language of his people. The villagers. The poor and the downtrodden. Czech.

And he got so far into preaching in Czech, that he even figured new ways to write the language, adding the precursors of the diacritics, the funny markings that change the sounds and make Čech so much easier to read than Polish.

The Council of Constance

The pope, or antipope as we call him now, didn’t like that at all and summoned him to a council in Constance, a kind of halfway point between Prague and the holy city of anti-Rome, which the French call Avignon. In Constance, they were having a big council to resolve the whole antipope thing anyway, so why not a trial on top?

The Council of Constance by Vaclav Brozik, 1883

But instead of any kind of real hearing, a bunch of the antipope’s minions captured him, tied him up, pushed him through a show trial, and then tossed him to the secular courts who promptly burnt him at stake. His last words were something prophetic, like, “In another 100 years will come a guy you can’t just tie up and burn at the stake”. Possibly in reference to Martin Luther, who would splinter the Church and the Holy Roman Empire forever. With that threat, the executioners gathered his ashes and tossed them into the Rhine River, preventing people from pretending to create relics from his bones.

The Hussites

But really, it didn’t take that long. After the local authorities had rounded up some rowdy Hussites and took them prisoner at the New Town Hall, a riot had formed outside, with the famous one-eyed general, Jan Žižka at the head. The rioters, excuse me, “peaceful protesters”, were demanding the release of some Hussites who had been taken prisoner by the Catholic-aligned authorities.

The peaceful protesters stormed the town hall and launched the authorities out the window, which started the timeless Czech tradition of “defenestrating” people you’re upset with.

After the defenestration, Žižka and the Hussites took Prague.

Jan Žižka

Žižka was such an amazing and interesting character that Pilsner Urquell should make a beer advertising campaign off the guy.

Jan Žižka at Vitkov Hill

Žižka once led an army of peasants and farmers to victory against armored knights using castles made of wagons.

He didn’t always have one eye, but when he did, he could still take the strategic advantage.

He never lost a battle, even after losing his other eye. And even when he didn’t have any eyes, he still won. Some say he could feel the enemy’s fear in the wind.

He once trained an army to fight with farm tools and tore down the king’s guard with a farmer’s flail.

Just before he died, he wanted to keep fighting, so he demanded his men turn his skin into leather used for war drums.

He is Jan Žižka. Stay thirsty, my friends.

A free throne

The rebellion of Žižka was perfect in timing. Just after the defenestration, the King died from a heart attack, and the nearest possible heir was King Sigismund in Hungary. So the Bohemians said screw it, we’ve had enough with these royals.

King Sigismund didn’t have enough with the Bohemians though, and he gathered forces loyal to the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. His army of Hungarians and Germans began marching towards Prague, far outnumbering the Hussite. Žižka sped down to Tabor and gathered some reinforcements, and he set up camp on Vitkov Hill in his neighborhood of Žižka.

Jan Žižka in Palace Lucerne by David Cerny

Žižka would win his battle against the King at Vitkov Hill, where his statue now stands (which is, by the way, the third largest horseman in the world, and also there’s another Žižka statue of him riding an upside down horse in Palac Lucerne).

The Hussite Legacy

The Hussites were fierce warriors, winning battle after battle, defying expectations and proving that ordinary believers could stand against established powers. They did awesome things like making wagon forts, waging early chemi-biological warfare by flinging poop over castle walls, and eventually turn against themselves with many rejoining the Catholics in the classic Czech attitude of “yesh mariatad” or something like that, which is Czech for “I have strong feelings about this but there is nothing to be done like everything else in life”.  

Years later, the Church basically said, “About Jan Hus, seems like a decent fellow, our bad.” And then they started letting the commoners drink wine at mass.

So anyway, that’s what all the wreaths and flags are about.

Street khatchapuri: More than cheesy bread

A lot can be said about the “Georgian table”.

It’s big. It’s bountiful. But after a few feasts it blends into monotony. I’ll be honest. And perhaps this is something of a hot take. But the sit down meals aren’t the best about Georgian food. Where Georgian food excels is its street food culture.

The street food here is the best in the world, let me tell you.

It’s hard to stay fit when every few minutes you pass some bakery with fresh pastries dripping with steaming, delicious cheese.

But it occurs to me that it’s not so easy to order. There are a lot of choices, and though sometimes you’ll get a selection in “English”, how do you really know what you want? Or even what all that stuff actually is?

The satskhobi at Freedom Square Metro

Most people, upon coming here, or perhaps before coming here, will know the basic. You’ve got khatchapuri (the cheesy bread), adjaruli khatchapuri (the famous egg boat), and khinkali (hand-eaten dumplings). That’s what Georgians are always bragging about. But put down the dumplings, man, and head over to the local satskhobi (place of baking, i.e. bakery) or sakhatchapure (place of xatchapuri). Here’s what you’ve got cooking.

And a word you need to remember when you order: “Akhalia?” which means, “Is it fresh?” Because you want this jazz straight from the oven, not sitting there being fly food for hours on end. Stand in a line for the best, or at least time it around mealtime, because that’s when these places gear up. I find 11:00 or 12:00 are the best times at a window.

You could of course ask them to nuke it in a microwave, in which case you want to ask, "datskhele, tu sheidzleba". If they do that, make they don't put it in a plastic bag and then place it in the microwave. If you catch them doing that, shout out, "Uplasmo!"

The history

I remember walking through the streets of Pompeii. One of the incredible things to see were the remnants of streetside cafes and fast food shops. Places that would sell bread pies and soups for the lunch breaks and those hurrying down the streets on errands. It was a fascinating detail in ancient life, and one that still very much exists today.

Georgians are super proud of their cheese, ranging from the top-tier sulguni (brine cheese originally made from bison milk, though more often from cow now), to salty imeretian cheese to cottage cheese style dombalkhacho and in-between "khatchapuri cheese". Georgian cheese tradition is as ancient as probably their streetfood khatchapuri tradition: in excavations at Khami Didi Gora, they've found 8000 year old clay pots for cheese among other things.

So, it's rich, delicious, and old... but let's move on what to order.

The food

We begin with the standard.

Khatchapuri – this is a cheesy bread.

Lobiani – This is a bean bread.

There are many types of khatchapuri and lobiani, and I’ll hit them all below. But generally, each pastry has a type in both options. So, if you’re vegan, go with the lobiani, if not, go with either. Vegan options of standard dishes are especially important in Georgia, because many people enjoy fasting for months without actually giving up anything, just switching to bean or sugar-free versions (not sure why you have to give up both sugar AND meat AND cheese for a fast, but whatever, it's religion, doesn't have to make sense to everyone).

Khatchapuri and lobiani list

Keep in mind, with each of these you have to specify “khatchapuri” or “lobiani” when you order, though some only exist as khatchapuri.

Imeruli – this is what you find at most restaurant tables or in most homes. It’s the standard cheese or bean pie. Circular stuffed pizza crust, not much else to brag about here. But did you know there are some interesting variations that make for better street eating?

Imeruli khatchapuri

Penovani – “penovani” means layered, and the crust used here is like a non-sweet croissant crust. It’s flaky, it’s messy, it’s great street eating, especially when fresh. You can get a penovani khacthapuri or a penovani lobiani.

Flaky crusted penovani

Nakhevari penovani – Sometimes the penovani can be too puffy, too cheesy, or too much. At these windows, you’ll want to keep an eye out for little square portions of khatchapuri, that clearly aren’t imeruli, but they’re not so puffy either. This is the “half-puffed” khatchapuri. Almost always a great snack. Mostly this option is only available for khatchapuri.

Nakhevari penovani

Lorit – With ham. Ratcha is a mountainous region famous for its smoked ham. When you have “ratchuli lobiani”, it’s served with either with a slice of ham, or bits of ham. The khachapuri equivalent though is “khatchapuri lorit”. This is personally my favorite of the street food options. You’ve got protein, you’ve got calcium, and it’s something somewhat familiar, like a grilled cheese sammich. Good stuff.

Guruli – This one is typically only served as khatchapuri. They take some hard-boiled egg, chop it up, and serve it in a moon-shaped cheese pie with a similar consistency to imeruli. Great for breakfast.

Khatchma – Sometimes you’ll find this khatchapuri-only option on the street. This is basically cheese lasagna. Layered noodles and cheese. Can be a bit messy to eat (not the flaky messy, but the oily, oozey messy that’d bad for street nosh). I generally avoid this for park life.

Ispanagit – This is a cheese and spinach option. Pretty good if you want to convince yourself you're eating healthy. It is, of course, not healthy.

Khabidzgina – This cheesy bread comes from Ossetia. It’s a cheese and mashed potato mix. One of my favorites, because like the spinach option, you can sort of pretend it’s healthy or has potassium at least.

Not your cheesy bread

Kubdari – Looks like an imeruli, but it’s stuffed with meat instead. Usually minced meat, sometimes chunks, and you never really know the source. Is it pork? Is it beef? Do we really care? Well, I guess you would if you’re Muslim, Jewish, or Hindu, so best to just ask. Better you learn then: “Ghori?” Pork. “Sakoneli?” Beef. Kubdari is originally from Svaneti, one of those “must-see” places in the mountains, full of snow-capped peaks, crazy stunt horse riders, and Mary Jane.

Kebabi – Something like meatloaf. It’s a modern trend now to serve “Georgian hamburgers” at sakhatchapures. And indeed, you might even have to call it a "hamburger" to get them to serve you one. These will often have lettuce, tomato, and kebabi. Sometimes cheese. Sometimes no tomato. Sometime cucumber. Who knows. Usually served cold, which is weird. You’ll have to time this one when it’s freshly made, I guess.

By the way, after finally trying one today, it has become one of my favorite meals. The meat was from a proper kebabi, a little bit spicy to tune in the taste buds. Good stuff.

The Georgian meatloaf hamburger

Hot dogi – With the same kind of sausage as you'd find in an American hot dog, they're wrapped up in a flaky pastry and baked. Sometimes with sauce inside, sometimes on top, sometimes none at all. Who knows. Part of the deliciousness is in the surprise.

Pizza – A distant cousin to the Italian pizza, this flat pastry appears similar but is covered in mayonnaise. For a long time, many Georgians did not know the difference. My host family in Peace Corps dragged me downstairs amidst one bout of depression, hoping to cheer me up. "Shawn, we made you pizza!"

"Pizza does not have mayo on it!" I replied, though I did appreciate the effort. This was during what I call, "the year of beans", when the grandma only served me beans, and would beat me with a wooden spoon if I insisted on cooking something else.

"How do you know it doesn't have mayo?" the host mom asked. "Have you been to Italy?"

She had a solid point. I had not been to Italy then.

But now I have. And pizza does not, in fact, have mayo on it.

"Pizza"

Though it seems like it would be messy, if you fold it in half, it's actually quite tidy and good. I say this now after having lived in Belium and become accustomed to mayonnaise. This is a fad that's only just waiting to explode in the hipster havens of Leige and Namur.

Ghvezeli – With the "gh" having a sound that's not really at all like a "French r", this long pastry comes stuffed with a variety of things. You can get kartopili (potato), ghortsi (pork), soko (mushroom), ispinagi (spinach), or lobiani (bean).

Sometimes you'll get an English translation that calls this a "pie". Meat pie, bean pie, etc. It's not a pie. It's just a long, stuffed, baked thingy. Don't expect any sweet sensations here.

Tone (tonay) / Shoti

Tone is a big, upside-down clay oven. The fire is in the middle, the clay vessel goes around and over it with a hole in the top. They slap bready goodness on the walls and let it bake. When it’s done, they scoop it out with a large wooden bread-scoop thing.

Before, they only made standard bread, “shotis puri”, out of these things. And frankly put, outside of stuffed breads, Georgian bread is fairly crap. But when baked in a tone, it’s absolutely delicious, especially when fresh. This is really the only way to eat bread in Georgia.

Tonis khabidzgina hovering over a stander tonis puri

A few years back, they started serving “tonis lobiani”, that is, stuffed bean bread cooked in a tone. Nowadays, many tones will offer a full catalogue of stuffed breads, like “tonis khatchapuri”, “tonis khabidzgina” and even “tonis kubdari” (the last two are perhaps my favorite; the kubdari has this nice meat sauce that gets soaked up in the tonis puri that’s just fantastic).

Picnic time!

So, if you’re in Tbilisi and looking forward to trying some of the cheese bread, consider a picnic instead of an overpriced restaurant. Just go by the satskhobi, order a variety of pastries, walk down to the park and enjoy the true taste of Georgia!  

Taking advantage of Brussels sun: Guinguettes!

Guinguette season is upon us! Sometimes. A day here, a day there. That's how Brussels goes, I guess. But today, definitely so.

When I was living in Brussels, I used to love sitting on my balcony and drinking coffee, watching the workers across the street in the park prepare the area. I first discovered the guinguette (gan-get) when we were looking for a place to rent a few years back. The din of relaxation pulled us in and, along with the clusters of playgrounds nearby, convinced us to stay in the neighborhood.

It’s a place that I loved immediately upon moving to Brussels. Just a short walk from our pad, we could combine it with an evening stroll with the kiddo, a “night out” (rare for parents of youngins) where we could enjoy a drink while Vato either had a juice, played with his toys in the dirt, or disappeared into the dark overgrowth of the nethers, chasing balls tossed by trolls. Kidding on the last one.

It—along with all its brothers and sisters—is the best place to drink in Brussels, mainly because it comes with that shot of Vitamin D sunshine that is so rare to behold in here SADland.

What is a “guinguette”?

“Guinguette” is basically French for “temporary summertime beergarden in a large city park”, and the entire Brussels concept of the thing is very optimistic. Given that Brussels gets about two actual days of sun a year, one would think that it would be silly to set up a guinguette, and yet, on those two days, the experience is glorious.

The guinguette was a 17th-century invention, when the peasant stock of the suburbs of Paris couldn’t afford the good wine and had to drink the cheap swill, called “guinguet”, in gardens along the Seine outside of town where they could avoid the wine tax. Often there would be music, a bit of dancing, and a bit of other merriment.

But what is a guinguette without a river? Well, Brussels had long buried their own Senne, but the guinguettes found their way to Brussels parks all the same, just not until 2017. And now there are 9 guinguettes spread throughout the city, none of them serving cheap swill.

Those are the ones by the guinguette company Barc, but there have since been rival guinguettes popping up as well. I spotted one last year in Ambriorix running out of what appeared to be a container. So here’s a map, where I’ve also included a few more, so that if you’re like myself, you like to do a bit of public imbibing. Just make sure you have that map of pissoirs on you that I set you up with the other week for your walk home.

Here's a map, not the pissoirs, but to the guinguettes:

The best of the best

My own favorite guinguette is at the Cinquantenaire. Chez Maurice. Named after a joker, Chez Maurice is the flagship of the guinguettes and part of why we moved to the neighborhood. They did have live music every Saturday afternoon, but that was later shot dead by another neighbor’s complaints. Why move to a busy location when you don't like things busy?

But recently, there’s been a contender to arrive in the Cinquantenaire. Chez Tipi is in the gallery next to the big triumphal arches. You walk up the big stairs/stage and settle down at the tables beneath the massive columns and beautiful 19th-century murals. While drinking your beer, you’ve got not just a fantastic view of the arches and murals, but also of the park and the city skyline. Not that Brussels has much of a skyline, but still.

Chez Tipi in the Cuinquintennaire

Warning for Tipi though, it does have an annoying toilet situation (as if that's unusual in Brussels, see my last blog!). You've got to go all the way down the stairs to the portapotties stairs-left hidden behind some bushes against a wall. Don't worry it's free, but don't be surprised to find some guys peeing in the ease of a pissoir.

My third favorite would be the one in Georges-Henri Park. Mostly because that's the next familiar place to me since there's a really cool playground there. And knowing where the best playgrounds are pretty much dictates my life these days.

Plastic cups

Don't be surprised by the plastic cups. That's the thing about Brussels' guinguettes: the focus on "sustainability". Though I'm not sure why they think plastic cups are more sustainable than glasses, I guess they're less likely to be stolen or broken, and cleaning up broken glass on dirt isn't anyone's idea of fun.

The plastic cup typically costs 1 euro deposit, which you get back upon turning it back in. This has created a kind of "trade", where beggars will come and clear the tables to keep the deposits. Sometimes the guinguette decides to crack down on this practice; other times it's no problem.

I don't really understand why they'd crack down on it though. I've been approached by one guy who had 30 cups and wanted me to turn them in for him (and give him the 30 euro in advance). I declined this bargain, knowing that the guinguette might not keep their side of the deal if they had refused him. So keep that in mind if anyone is trying to get you to turn theirs in.

A note on the season

The (true) guinguettes typically open around the first weekend of May (kind of a bit staggered though), and they close the first weekend of October (also a bit staggered). Kiosk Radio in Parc Royale and the park Woodpecker locations I tagged on that map are open year round (though might close for rain).

Year-round beergarden in Parc Brussels

A little bit of sunshine

Having lived in sunny places—one cannot be Denver in this regard—I had begun to somewhat take sunshine for granted. When it’s sunny every single day of the year, there’s really nothing special about it. You don’t take advantage of the situation; you put off outdoor activities because you get the sense that, “Well, I can always do that tomorrow.” It’s like New Yorkers seeing the Statue of Liberty. Have you ever met a New Yorker who’s actually seen the damned thing other than en passant on the Staten Island Ferry?

And that’s how sunshine had become for me.

But years later, living in my share of solar-impaired cities (Prague, now Brussels), I’ve done a complete about-face on the attribute. And I’ve also come to realize why, on the whole, Northern Europeans are so much more active and athletic than Americans.

Where we Americans (from Colorado) have the sun, Northern Europeans have the sun-to-look-forward-to. When you’ve got ONE day where you can get your footie done and finally it’s not a miserable downpour, then it makes the experience that much more incredible and golden. You appreciate it more. It makes you want to join a team, practice up, and get out there and play all that bit more. It makes all those slogs through the rain worth it, and even more, necessary so that you can experience the full Vitamin D-supplying intensity of the great Apollo.

The importance of Vitamin D

If you’re living in Brussels, you may have noticed the lack of sunshine. Or if you’ve read this far, you might have noticed I’ve mentioned it with some capacity. If you moved here though, it really is essential that you get to a Medimarkt or wherever a green cross near you is and pick yourself up a vial of the vitamins. Having just had a bloodwork checkup myself, I’ve found myself at quite a phenomenally low level, despite going out on daily walks. Because apparently walking under the clouds and rain doesn’t do much for you.

And so it goes.