The ramblings of a woman,
wife, & mother, who loves:
Jesus / my man / the three,
learning about parenting /
mamahood / childbirth,
cooking foods healthy /
international / yummy,
pretending to garden /
write / design,
attempting to run /
exercise / lift weights,
enjoying traveling /
camping / adventures,
finding ways to love /
serve / sacrifice for others.

It is not to say she does these things
with style or grace, or even skill.

All Shades of Brown UHO

July 24, 2010 - 6:57 AM

Leah had told us before we left for Czech that Strakonice had "the best camp food" of all the Czech English Camps, that we'd be eating ostrich eggs instead of chicken eggs, and that dumplings would be flowing.  Normally, Josh would have said, "I'll be the judge of that," but we took her at her word that the food we were eating was good, typical Czech food. 

While the soup, potatoes, dumplings and kraut we had were good & typical, the chicken and roasts were good & typical, there was this one type of "meat" that seemed strange from the start.  Not that were were upset or complaining, in all honesty we found the whole thing very funny and entertaining!  :)!

They were using what we loving called Mystery Meat in a majority of the dishes.  Leah was unsure what it was actually called but we guessed it was bologna-esque "meat," though it sometimes had bones and sections of fat in it.  She also thought/confirmed that the meat was very untypical for this camp.

mm

Mystery meat in our first dinner at camp.  The "gravy" is actually called UHO in Czech, which translates to Universal Brown Sauce.  They served the UHO in a variety of forms, some light, some dark, but no two the same.

mm

Mystery meat with a Chinese-esque sauce, pasta noodles, and white cheese.

mm

Mystery meat thinly sliced for breakfast sandwiches.

mm

Mystery meat hidden inside a pepper.

mm

Mystery meat ground up with pasta.  This meal was the breaking point for me, it was very hard to swallow.

While we were incredibly thankful for the hard work the cafeteria ladies put into making these meals, by the end of the week I would find myself consciously trying to not think about the meat I was eating and just eat it.  Again, we didn't complain outloud there, we were able to manage, take smaller portions, ask for only dumplings, or go hungry.

It helped that breakfast was the best meal of the day, with a really delicious bread, cereal & yogurt, and sometimes meat & cheese.  Sometimes the meat was the mystery meat, but other times it was a really good ham with a nice smoked cheese.  (Though once they incorporated the mystery meat into a paste like butter and served it for breakfast.)  Nicely too, for a treat, one of the camp kids would take his motorcycle into town and bring back dozens of donuts to sell during breakfast.  (Our kids LOVED this guy!)  The camp did serve hot dogs for breakfast, though, that I thought were good...

hotdogs

And once the camp served these delicious donuts for dinner, the boys were seriously bummed they only got 3 of these.  (Though, truth be told in the middle of the night Miriam threw up these donuts all over herself, her bed and the room.  Not fun.)

donuts

As Leah foretold us, we were served an ostrich egg casserole.  It had tomatoes on top, fish on the bottom, & creamy mashed potatoes on the side.  Everyone liked this meal and it was actually Max's favorite meal, and that is saying something!

egg bake

A farm, literally 30 feet right outside the camp's backdoor, supplied the ostrich eggs.  It was so close that one of the camp rules was you couldn't touch the ostriches or go inside their pen.  The flimsy fence was the only thing that protected you from the ostriches.  The students at camp loved to get a rise out of the birds and I think Josh may even have a video of their attack stance, I'll look, ;)!

ostrich

While the food wasn't necessarily spectacular, it was food, and we were very grateful for it!  (Even though both Josh and I thought we lost an easy 5 lbs while at camp.)  Our three kids ate it, especially Zeke who generally went back for seconds (he would even figure out Czech sayings so he could get just what he wanted from the cafeteria ladies).  But as you could guess, it was Max who was quoted as saying, "When can we eat good food again?" 

Yes, very fitting coming from Max.  :)!

NEXT STORY...

No Responses to All Shades of Brown UHO

Required, but not displayed.

HOME

Welcome! I am glad you're here! If you are new and would like to get caught up on what's going on, check out these quick links to get you started:

About Me and This Blog...

Begin Our Adventures of Fall/Winter 2012 to CA, MN, CO
   Ladies Trip to Napa Valley
   My Parents Rode in a Plane!

Begin Our Adventures of Summer 2012 to MN and CO
   Vacation to the North Shore and Cabin
   Boulder for the Summer
   Life in Boulder

Begin Our Adventures of Winter/Spring 2012 to UT
   The Drive to CO/UT Begins
   Vacation in Moab
   Living in Moab / Denver

Begin Our Adventures of Fall/Winter 2011 to CA
   The Drive to CA Begins
   Living in the SF
   Living in the Suburbs
   Coming Home to IC

Begin Our Adventures of Summer 2010 to Eastern Europe
   Life at Czech English Camp
   Travels in Germany & Austria
   Travels in Czech & Poland

FOLKS

Fam Q
LM - Czech Guru
RM - CSS Guru
JLProject 
Mrs. Windham
Joe Pyle Wedding Photographer
RedThreadLove

RSS FEED

RSS Feed

www.flickr.com



Cramer Family 5