Czech mother complains about "gypsy food" in school cafeteria, TV Nova says parents are "revolting"

For the private TV Nova station, any Romani topic is evidently good for their numbers. The station’s online news server, Tn.cz, has posted a written report and video of a story claiming that parents of children attending a school in Chomutov are revolting against the fact that the cafeteria has prepared a “week of Romani cuisine”. That claim is so exaggerated as to be almost at the level of a false alarm.

The report starts like this: ” ‘Moržot’ or rabbit soup, rabbit and potato pancakes, Holubki, Jarminakre, Prajta – cabbage rolls, chicken paprika, and duck in cream sauce. Children at a school in Chomutov will taste dishes like these this week. The cafeteria cooks have prepared a week of Romani cuisine for them. ‘We traditionally make the cuisines of national minorities, our neighbors and our non-neighbors,’ Václava Bublová, the cafeteria head, explains.”

After this innocuous opening, the “TV Nova bomb” is dropped: “Children have already been served traditional Greek, Italian, Mexican and Slovak food, but the Romani week has caused a clash. For some parents the idea that their children would eat traditional gypsy food is so shocking that they prefer their children not eat in the cafeteria.”

The report first shows people who like the week of Romani cuisine. Then the reporter says: “In North Bohemia the situation around inadaptable citizens is so exacerbated that some of the parents have been prompted by the well-intentioned event to bar their children from eating lunch in the cafeteria.”

There is a shot of a woman saying: “They eat lunch there all the time, but not this week.” “The reason?” the reporter asks. The woman replies: “It’s questionable.” We then see a man who says “it bothers me”, and then another man who is bothered by the name of the event, but not by the fact that it is taking place.

The TV Nova report claims an equivalency between “inadaptable citizens” and Romani people. It also claims something that is untrue: The situation around Romani people is not exacerbated throughout all of North Bohemia, but only at some places in Šluknov district. However, the main point is that the “parental revolt” against the week of Romani cuisine turns out to be just one woman’s response.

News server Romea.cz contacted cafeteria director Václava Bublová, who has indirectly confirmed this is the case: “We prepare 380 lunches every day, and when so many people are eating you can always find one who doesn’t like it. As the people from TV Nova told me, it’s just one mother who removed her children from eating lunch during Romani cuisine week. She is said to have complained that we were cooking Romani cuisine at a time when there is unrest in Šluknov district related to Romani people. My response is that I don’t care. There’s no unrest here and Romani cuisine is part of our strategy. We usually plan weeks where we serve the dishes of various nations,” Václava Bublová told news server Romea.cz.