Yes, I’ll be home for Christmas — you can count on me — but what if a trip back isn’t in the cards?
Then you eat carp, of course, just as I did in 1991, when I spent the Christmas season in Košice, Czechoslovakia (now independent Slovakia). I was there for a gig teaching English to doctors, nurses and staff at the city’s university hospital. It was a decidedly (and refreshingly) post-communist, non-consumerist holiday celebration that I’m guessing has changed considerably in 33 years.
The story is relayed at my website.
40 Years in Beer, Part Thirty Eight: Christmas in Košice, 1991
Those big blue plastic tubs appearing just before Christmas piqued my curiosity, especially when I saw fish swimming in them. My students gleefully explained: those aren’t mere fish, they’re kapr, “carp” to Americans, and they’re not just carp — they’re Christmas dinner!
Three students invited me into their homes for Christmas Eve (one) and...
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