Česky
What can hospital patients look forward to with the new menu, what style of cuisine have you prepared for them?
I've prepared a kind of all-you-can-eat menu. The idea is not to have heavy dishes like dumplings and sauces. The food in the hospital should be lighter so that it can heal and not overload the body. So clients can look forward to vegetables, good meat and light side dishes. Overall, it will be very varied and balanced.
Do you think the diet can heal?
You know it can, that's what I've been saying all along! Diet is essential. If people eat well, they'll be in the hospital for less time. I'm convinced of that, even from experience, when I've had the opportunity to taste the food in other hospitals. Often it's just a waste of food that nobody wants and it doesn't even do anything for the body. You know yourself that if you are sick and you have an honest broth, how it will help you. And just as importantly, the cooks cook it with love.
Do they cook with love in our hospital? And you cook with love?
Of course you do! I wouldn't have it any other way. Of course there's a negative person in every kitchen, but it's important that the person who runs it knows how to spread positive energy and pass it on to the team. I believe that when you have a meal that's cooked by a positive person and a plate that's prepared by a negative team, the end experience for the patient is just different.
How did you prepare for this work challenge? Is this a big change and new for you from what you normally do?
My role was to come up with recipes in collaboration with the nutritionists, do the calculations and train the local team of chefs. There are good cooks at the hospital in Hořovice, there is a good base and it was good to cook here before. We just changed the concept to make it more varied and interesting and to avoid the heavy stuff. We've got rid of the little ills like instant broths and things like that, which I don't like.
Why does hospital food in general have such a bad reputation?
In hospitals - but I don't want to generalise - they don't think about food very much. They don't address the fact that it can affect how long a patient is going to be there. It's one thing to be taken care of medically, but then you're lying there on the bed, you can't do much, and the only bright spot of the day is the food that everyone looks forward to. So why not give the patients the best? It puts them in a good mood and makes them feel better. The diet also adds a lot of positive energy to the body so that it can regenerate better.
Your motto on your website is "Bacon makes everything better". Can this be combined with the hospital diet?
I think it certainly can. When I look at it from an ingredient perspective, it's bacon and "bacon". I believe that if you have a good, quality ingredient, you don't have to put a lot of it in and the flavour can come through in smaller quantities. The fat also carries the flavor and tenderness. When it is not strictly necessary, for example when the patient has digestive problems and is not allowed to have fatty things, the fat should be there. But it should not be overdone. I'm not saying that pouring a litre of oil into a dish makes it better. Not to mention that important vitamins are soluble in fats.
Do you plan to include unconventional ingredients or techniques that are not so well known?
More like ingredients that are less well known in the context of hospital food. I dare say it might be new to a lot of people. If I look at it from the point of view of a typical Czech household, where they cook a few meals over and over again, there will be a lot of new things for them. In addition, the menu will change every three to four months depending on the season. It's going to be interesting and I'm so glad that this is happening. I've wanted to do a similar project to change the food in the hospital for a long time, when I saw how bad it was elsewhere.
What do Czechs like to eat?
That's easy: anything fried. We just put chicken strips in panko breadcrumbs on the menu for tomorrow. And there are 500 of them ordered. It's good, I'm not saying it's bad. I put fried food on the menu, too. It's all about what we fry it in, how we do it, how often we do it, and what the side dishes are. That's crucial. Next, roasted meats - duck or pork belly - lead the way.
You have a lot of experience cooking in a restaurant and running a catering company. How does cooking in a restaurant differ from cooking in a hospital?
Primarily the difference is in the quantity, although catering, that's also for 500 people. But you drop the different variations for different, it's more varied in a hospital. Otherwise, it's not that big a difference.
Will people see you directly in the hospital canteen?
My role is just at the beginning, it's mainly about coming up with the menu concept and training. I'm more intensive in the beginning, but I'll be coming here regularly, of course. It's important to me that we maintain the quality. I trust that the local chefs are interested in cooking, they enjoy it and they will maintain the quality and the set bar. They don't take it that someone is now making a terrorist attack on their positions. It seems to me that they are enthusiastic. There's mainly the will of the owner and management because they felt there was room for improvement. Although it does have an impact on the economic side because they have to add on raw materials. The staff realise that they will have better raw materials that they can give more care to. That's also why we set up a selection of fewer dishes because it makes a difference if you focus on the quality of two dishes or you have to clear five.
Do you plan to collect feedback on new food from patients and staff and adjust the menu accordingly?
I'm all about making sure the meals are varied, good, and if someone grumbles that there are no dumplings, they can hold out and have them at home. We're not changing it for that. I'm not counting on everyone just praising it and saying how amazing it is. I'm sure the team in the kitchen puts their all into the cooking, the end product is good and there's no quality issue. But you can never please everyone. Those who want to find faults will find them. But we definitely want to gather different opinions, and when we create the menu for next season, we'll sit down and discuss it.
Will you continue to Beroun?
That's the plan. We're going to evaluate how it's caught on here and see if we'll deploy it there.
