Adulterated romance

A few high-quality freezers hum quietly on the ground floor of an apartment building in Brno. An outdoor thermometer is about to reach 30, but the temperature down here remains comfortable. A traditional ice cream manufacturer, Hvězda, is just working on a special order ― an egg yolk ice cream which, in addition to having an excellent flavor, must be also resistant to salmonella.

A young man wearing plastic gloves approaches one of the two shiny, strange-looking machines, pours a yellow substance from a chrome tap into a glass bowl and hands it to an elegant man in his 70s. A satisfied expression appears on the face of Drahoslav Hvězda, third-generation's representative of the family business, as he rolls the delicacy over his tongue: The egg yolk ice cream has come out well again. What a pity only a few known places offer such a delicacy. What do Czech pastry cooks have to do to provide each corner in this country with excellent ice cream like that available in Switzerland, France or Italy?

It is worth it to have courage

Ice cream chains such as Algida or Schöller have dominated the local sweetshops for years. In addition to large advertising campaigns, their popularity is driven by the belief that only a globally produced ice cream is reliable. There are some 600 ice cream producers currently operating in the Czech Republic. Their products, however, aren’t…