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.

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.

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

Mystery meat thinly sliced for breakfast sandwiches.

Mystery meat hidden inside a pepper.

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...

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.)

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!

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, ;)!

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.  :)!

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