The only major colonial empire which did not, in any way, import food from the colonies?
I’m from Denmark, we traditionally ate porridge and potatoes and pork, and of course rye bread so dense you can club someone to death with it if you want to.
Comment on Anon teaches you about their culture
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
I’m Dutch/British, and I can honestly say the Dutch don’t (historically) like tasty food. Maybe it’s the Calvinism, maybe were culturally broken. Maybe both.
Behold the Dutch breakfast
Now behold the Dutch lunch
No, that’s not a joke or a mistake. That’s real.
Typical Dutch food is Stamppot. Which is boiled potatoes (poorly) crushed with 1 or 2 boiled vegetables in it. There are a dozen versions of it and people will argue which beacon of sadness is better.
Another typical Dutch food: pea soup so thick you can eat it with a fork. It has peas, bacon, potato and sadness. Recently people added stuff to make it tasty, but historically it’s just peas and potato.
As a little break from food talk, here’s a famous Dutch painter making a famous Dutch painting: People eating potatoes
A typical classic Dutch desert is Hangop, which is yoghurt you hang (hence the name) in a cheesecloth to let the water soak out to make it more dense. That’s it. Plain yoghurt. Maybe add some honey for this amazing Dutch “treat”.
Now, we have amazing cheeses today, but historically Dutch cheese was pretty shit. Most of the land isn’t suited for cattle, so the milk had very little flavour. The Dutch invented adding herbs and spices into cheese. While french cheese might have a vague hint of cumin due to the ripening process in an ancient cave system, the Dutch would just chuck cumin into cheese.
We hate food, and it’s a genetic problem we still haven’t managed to break.
CarstenBoll@feddit.dk 8 hours ago
rbos@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
The best Dutch food owes a lot to the occupation of Indonesia.
CarstenBoll@feddit.dk 6 hours ago
See, I know almost nothing about the Dutch cuisine. I heard you deep fry almost everything, and I like stroopwafels a lot.
In 10th grade I spent 2 weeks in the Netherlands on a school trip, but I remember absolutely nothing about the food which is actually sort of odd.
If I had to guess, I’d assume you eat classic farmers food, carb heavy with some sort of meat and dairy. But maybe that’s just because I assume everyone north of the Rhine to eat that.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
Oh no, we imported lots of food. And we kept it nearly separate, never to mix it with our own.
We imported Indonesian food, mixed it with Cantonese food and called it “Chinese food”, or the “Chinese Indian Speciality Restaurant” nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinees-Indisch_restaurant
bluesheep@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
You take those stamppot hating words back or we’re gonna have a problem vriend
NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca 4 hours ago
I had a Dutch roommate once who routinely ate sprinkles on toast for breakfast — she called it traditional.
Half my family is from the Caribbean and I’ll admit we eat some odd things (all manner of salted fruit for example), but I have a hard time computing sprinkle toast as a complete meal
rbos@lemmy.ca 1 minute ago
I do love (quality) sprinkles on straight-up white bread, but I will usually toast the bread first and put on a thin layer of peanut butter instead of butter.
Dollar-store generic sprinkles are AWFUL. De Ruijter or bust.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 1 hour ago
I had a Dutch roommate once who routinely ate sprinkles on toast for breakfast — she called it traditional.
It is! Hagelslag on bread is very much a Dutch traditional food.
Bread, apply butter, pour chocolate sprinkles on. Eat.
rbos@lemmy.ca 1 minute ago
So many people don’t appreciate how good high-quality butter is!
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 4 hours ago
Thank you! Nobody I’ve pointed this out to seems to understand what an abomination cold butter on raw bread with sprinkles is, I thought I was the crazy one.
NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca 4 hours ago
It’s not for me…I’d faster do it with melted butter and toast if I were going to. But then again, I eat hot pepper soaked pineapple rings…
rbos@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
On the other hand… Bitterballen, poffertjes, awesome cheeses of all sorts, rookworst, stroopwafels, spekkoek, speculaas, advocaat…
CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works 1 hour ago
The fact that there is a snack that you warm on a cup of coffee but don’t dip in it (so as not to change the texture of either) is one of the most Dutch things I’ve ever heard of lol.
I’m partial to biscotti myself but I’ll admit a good stroopwafel is nice.
maltasoron@sopuli.xyz 3 hours ago
Yeah, Dutch snackbars have all kinds of foods that I haven’t even seen in Belgium, like mexicanos.
Also, hagelslag en chocoladevlokken.
Also, Dutch bread is actually good, so you don’t need to put a lot of stuff on it to make it tasty.
eyes@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Bitterballen is up there as one of the best drinking foods I’ve had.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
Bitterballen, poffertjes, awesome cheeses of all sorts, rookworst, stroopwafels, (…) pannekoek.
We’re great at snacks, that’s absolutely true.
But we share speculaas with Belgium and Germany, and spekkoek is Indonesian. Advocaat is… Probably an acquired taste, I’ve never seen anyone under 60 drink it
rbos@lemmy.ca 5 minutes ago
Funny story, we were in the Netherlands around the holidays last year and COULD NOT find advocaat. :( It definitely seems to be an old-person drink.
Comes of being a second-generation Canadian. I grew up with advocaat but I guess it’s a snapshot of ye olde times.
kungen@feddit.nu 4 hours ago
I’d be drinking Advocaat all the time if it wasn’t so expensive.
StillAlive@piefed.world 8 hours ago
You know it’s bad when a Brit thinks your food is bad.
Dasus@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Oh that’s the best food culture I could imagine.
I hate it when people overvalue food. I have chronic gastric issues and I’m just so fed up with people trying to feed me or tell me how I’ve not eaten enough.
mika_mika@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
The only person to appreciate Dutch food is this self professed broken person here.
drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 hours ago
I remember seeing a Dutch person say something like “British food might be shit but at least they have something, there are no notable Dutch dishes”.
glimse@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Man I loooove split pea soup. You can use it as mortar but every spoonful is a warm hug in a way other soups can’t match
harambe69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 hours ago
I do not know whether to be disgusted or sad. Probably both. I cannot comprehend a meal that does not contain a proper blend of spices and various interesting textures.
felixwhynot@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Relevant: youtube.com/shorts/co9ue2CQjEA
ArseAssassin@sopuli.xyz 5 hours ago
As a Finn I feel sorry with a side of unexpected kinship over this post.
ThirdConsul@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
Yeah, I call bullshit or a case of not appreciating your own culture.
Dutch were the damn spice traders of the world. This can be still seen in many dishes, even damn cookies like hagel.
You have had proper meats, so all meat products were in your cuisine - rook and metworsts. Pancakes with bacon and shit. Tiger bread with spreads.
You eat the damn abomination of a spice liquorice like its good, and you’re per capita biggest liquorice consumers.
Regarding sweet desserts, you have had a shitton of different pies and buttercakes, as well as this weird cake sandwitch called tampons or smthing like that.
Stamppot is food for the poorest workers. Like literally Dutch version of, idk, mcdonalds or smiliar. Of course its going to be filling but not cuisine. If you eat it daily then damn, I’m sorry for you, grab some pears and red wine and make stoofperen.