Dutch Cuisine
Though I do not know a lot about the history of Dutch cuisine, I would like to tell you what a Dutch breakfast, lunch and dinner can look like.
The Dutch are famous for their dairy products, especially for all the (cow’s milk) cheeses.
Still, cheese in my home is not an often used product. Mainly because my two children tend to pluck anything that’s not smeared directly on the bread, from the slice of bread, eat that and leave the bread alone. Most of the time they get ‘chocopasta’ on their bread which is some kind of creamy spread with hazelnut-chocolate taste.
Also very popular are the chocolate sprinkles (hagelslag), apple treacle (appelstroop) and peanut butter (pindakaas). At least in my household (and many more I’m sure) breakfast is served with either tea or a glass of milk, Chocomel (chocolate milk) or Fristi (yoghurt drink with a fruity taste).
Small children often get Brinta (a warm porridge) and cereal is in the upbeat as well.
Lunch can be a hot soup (some people dip pieces of bread in the soup and eat it) or a salad or sandwich, like the egg-topped open-face ‘uitsmijter’ with ham and cheese. Working people can buy inexpensive lunches at ‘broodjeswinkels’ where they can buy all kinds of richly spread sandwiches and buns. At fast food stores the favourites are fries with mayonnaise, meat croquettes with mustard, frikadellen with mayonnaise, curry and onions (also called frikadel speciaa). By 3 or 4 p.m, it’s time for tea or coffee with a biscuit, slice of cake or another treat.
Dinner, traditionally served early by international standards, starts at about 6 o’clock in the evening. I do this because I was brought up this way as well, plus after dinner, I have to clean the table, prepare the kids for bath and bed and otherwise it would be getting too late.
A classic Dutch dinner would consist of only one simply main course: potatoes, vegetables, meat, gravy. Or a stew of potatoes and vegetables.
Typical Dutch dishes are stamppot (Dutch stew) and snert (a rich and thick pea soup).
Famous Dutch stews are:
hutspot (stew of potatoes, carrots and onions, served with slow-cooked meat or bacon)
stamppot boerenkool (curly kale, potatoes, gravy served with rookworst = smoked sausage).
Stimp stamp also called stamppot rauwe andijvie (raw endive, potatoes, diced fried speck = a kind of bacon).
Stamppot zuurkool (sauerkraut, potatoes, served with fried bacon and/or a smoked sausage).
If there is a starter at all (where I’m from usually only on Sundays) most of the time it is hot soup.
Today, foreign dishes gain more and more in popularity and more often dinner is Italian pasta, Indonesian meat and rice dishes, Mexican burritos and enchiladas etc. etc.
My children like endive, chicoroy, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower but they love it more when I serve Italian pasta or some other foreign dish. I don’t serve foreign dishes a lot because I too was brought up with the ‘potatoes and vegetables are healthy’ drill.
