Dutch cuisine
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Dutch cuisine is shaped by the country's agricultural produce and its history. It is characterized by its somewhat limited diversity in dishes.
Contents |
[edit] Agricultural products
- Dutch agriculture has five major sectors, fishery, animal husbandry, greenhouse-based, tillage-based and fruit-based agriculture.
- Tillage-based crops include: potatoes, beetroot, green beans, carrots, celeriac, onions, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, endive, spinach, Belgian endive and lettuce. Recently some initiatives have been started to retain interest in forgotten vegetables including common purslane, medlar, parsnip and black salsify
- The fishery sector produces: cod, herring, plaice, soleidae, mackerel, eel, tuna, salmon, trout, oysters, mussels, shrimp and sardine.
[edit] Indonesian influence
Because of the Dutch colonial past, there has been a considerable Asian influence on the Dutch cuisine. From the 16th century onwards all sorts of spices mainly from the Dutch Indies were introduced into Dutch quisine. Later Indonesian dishes such as Nasi Goreng, rice with chicken or pork, have become part of Dutch cuisine. Because of this, local Chinese takeaway restaurants in the Netherlands also have considerable Indonesian influences.
[edit] Bread & Cheese
During the day, the Dutch eat bread and cheese.
The Dutch are famous for their dairy and most especially for their (cow milk) cheeses. The vast majority of Dutch cheeses are semi-hard or hard cheeses. Famous Dutch cheeses include Goudse, Edammer, Leidse cheeses. A Dutch speciality is the mixture of herbs or spices in the cheese during primary production. Well-known examples are cheeses with cloves (usually the Frisian nagelkaas), cumin and caraway (most famously Leyden cheese), or nettle.
Dutch bread tends to be a very airy bread made from yeast dough. From the 1970s onward Dutch bread became predominantly whole grain, with often additional seeds such as sunflower or pumpkin seeds mixed with the dough for taste. Rye bread is one of the few dense breads of the Netherlands. White bread used to be the luxury bread, often made with milk besides water. A Frisian innovation of white bread is sugarbread, white bread with large lumps of sugar mixed with the dough.
Apart from cheese, the Dutch also use harty meats or sweets on their bread. Typically Dutch are the use sweets like chocolate sprinkles, molasses, and peanut butter. Regionally popular harty meats include bloedworst, dried sausage and uierboord, made from udders
[edit] Coffee & Tea
The Dutch drink coffee and tea throughout the day, often served with one simple biscuit. Dutch thrift led to the famous standard rule of only one cookie with each cup of coffee; it has been suggested that the reasons for this can be found in the trade-mentality and Protestant upbringing. Café au lait is also drunk often it is called Koffie verkeerd (Coffee-the-wrong-way-around). Other hot drinks include Kwast (warm water with the juice of a lemon), anijsmelk (hot milk with anise) and hot chocolate.
[edit] Dinner
Dinner, traditionally served early for international standards starts at about 6 o'clock in the evening. The classical Dutch dinner consists of one simple course: traditionally potatoes, with vegetables and meat and meat gravy, or a stew, in which the potatoes and vegetables are mixed. Dutch food is traditionally characterised by the high consumption of vegetables when compared to the consumption of meat. If there is a starter, it is usually a soup. The final course is a sweet dessert.
Some typical Dutch wintertime dishes include stamppot (Dutch stew) and pea soup. Famous stamppotten include:
- Hutspot, made of potato, onion and carrot served with stewed meat or cooked bacon. This is a legacy of the Spanish invaders, who left a pot of hutspot in their trenches outside the hungering besieged town of Leiden in 1574. When the city was liberated, this stew was among the first food the people found. Before potatoes were introduced in Europe hutspot was made of parsnips, carrots and onions.
- Boerenkoolstamppot, kale mixed with potatoes, served with gravy, mustard and rookworst.
- Stamppot rauwe andijvie, raw endive mashed through hot potatoes, served with diced fried speck.
- Hete Bliksem, boiled potatoes and sour apples tossed with diced speck
- Zuurkoolstamppot, sauerkraut mashed with potato. Serve with fried bacon or sausage. Sometimes curry powder or pineapple pieces are mixed through this stamppot to make an exotic variation.
Stews are often served with mixed pickle, including zure zult or with stewed pears (stoofperen)
The meat products includ meatballs, blinde vink, minced meat wrapped in bacon, balkenbrij, a type of liverwurst and meatloaf. The gravy in which the meat is produced is also eaten, an IJsselmeer variant of this is butter en eek, where vinegar is added to the gravy.
Diner can also involve pancakes, of which the Dutch have several versions, including poffertjes, miniature pancakes and spekdik, a Northern variant with bacon. Wentelteefje are also similar. Broeder, a type of cake, is also eaten for dinner, mainly in West Friesland.
Desserts ofen include vla, pudding or yoghurt. Regional variants include broodpap, made from old bread, griesmeelpudding, grutjespap, Haagse bluf, Hangop, Jan in de zak, Karnemelksepap, Krentjebrij, Rijstebrij (rice pudding), and Watergruwel.
[edit] Alcoholic Drinks
Wine has traditionally been absent in Dutch cuisine, instead there are many brands of beer and strong alcoholic liquor. The most famous Dutch beers is Heineken. Strong liquors include Jenever and Brandewijn, but also kandeel, made from white wine, Kraamanijs, a liquor made from anise, Oranjebitter, a special popular on festivities surrounding the royal family, advocaat, Boerenjongens, rasins on brandewijn, Boerenmeisjes, apricot on brandewijn.
[edit] Special Occasions
On special occassions, pastries are eaten.
When a baby is born in a family, the young parents traditionally serve their guests a rusk with muisjes (sugarcoated anisseeds).
The Dutch festival of Sinterklaas originally dedicated to Sint Nicolaas) is held on the 5 December. Special pastries are made, these are distributed by his aid, Zwarte Piet, they include pepernoten (gingernut-like biscuits but made with cinnamon, pepper, cloves and nutmeg mix of spices), letters made from chocolate, marzipan, borstplaat (discs of fondant); and several types of spiced cookies: taai-taai, speculaas and kruidnoten, banketstaaf, made from almond meal
On New Year's Eve, Dutch houses smell of piping hot oil deep fryers in which oliebollen, appelflappen and appelringen (battered apple rings) are prepared. These yeast dough balls, filled with glacé fruits, pieces of apple and raisins and sultanas, are a treat especially for New Year's Eve and are served with powdered sugar. The Dutch also brought their oliebollen to America, where they are now known in a slightly different form as donuts.
On birthdays, all kinds of cakes and cookies are eaten, including appeltaart, Bossche bol, dikke koek, cream cake, Fryske dumkes, gevulde koek (cookies filled witn almond meal), Groninger koek, Janhagel, Ketelkoek, Kindermanstik, Knieperties, Krakeling, Krentenwegge, Kruidkoek, Limburgse vlaai, Nonnevotten, Ouwewijvenkoek, peperkoek, Rijstekoek, Spekkoek (from Indonesia), Sprits, Tompouce, Trommelkoek, Bitterkoekjes, Kletskop and Stroopwafel.
A famous Dutch sweet is Drop, a kind of liquorice.
[edit] Fastfood
The Dutch have their own types of fastfood. A fastfood meal often consists out of a portion of french fries with a dressing and a meat product. The most common dressing of chips is mayonaise, while other dressings include ketchup or spiced ketchup, peanut sauce or piccalilli. Sometimes the chips are served with combinations of sauces, most famously special: mayonaise, with (spiced) ketchup and choped onions; or war: mayonaise and peanut sauce (sometimes also with ketchup and chopped onions). The meat product is a deepfried snack, this includes a frikandel a deep fried minced meat sauasage and the kroket, deep fried meat ragout covered in breadcrumbs. A smaller version of the kroket, the bitterbal, is often served as a snack in bars and official receptions. Regional snacks include eierbal a combination of egg and ragout in the North and East, and Brabants worstenbroodje, a sausage backed in bread. Other snack are the Indonesian-inspired bamiblock (deepfried bread encrusted mee goreng), the nasiball (deepfried bread encrusted nasi goreng).
Another kind of fastfood is fish. This includes raw herring, which is sold and eaten (sometimes with chopped onions) in markets, by lifting the herring high in the air by its tail, and eating it upwards. Another regular fish snack is "kibbeling"; deep fried pieces of cod and rollmops.
