Pepa: my pet fish, my dinner.

The Czechs don’t eat turkey for Christmas, no no no. It’s much more interesting than that. Every year, we buy a carp from these vendors on the street. The vendors will happily kill and gut the fish for you, but in families with small children, the carp is usually taken home live and allowed to swim in the bath for a few days. I have fond memories of playing with the Christmas-dinner carp when I was little. My mum told me there have been occasions when the carp accidentally died of “natural causes” before the dinner, but as kids we never noticed. I guess my parents managed to quickly rustle up a new one from somewhere? Or maybe we just ate the dead one? Who knows.

Many people give a name to their carp – “Pepa” is a popular one. Often, people form such a strong emotional bond with their carp that they are then unable to bring themselves to kill it and eat it. Every year, Czech TV stations urge people not to release their carps back into the river because the temperature shock caused by going from a warm bath at home to a cold December river usually kills the carp anyway.

Our carp is usually fried in batter and eaten with potato salad. Choking on a carp bone is a common accident on Christmas Eve in the Czech Republic.