Background
The Kingdom of the Netherlands is best known for having 25% of its land area below sea level. This technically makes the Netherlands one of the rare man-made structures visible from space!
The country's position on the North Sea and its rich pastureland make fish and dairy major parts of its cuisine. Major French influence on the cuisine started in the 16th century when it was part of the Holy Roman Empire. Their geographical location also led to the development of sea trading routes and a dominant role in the spice trade. An Edible History of Humanity describes some of the measures taken to protect this extremely valuable commerce, such as the use of ronin mercenaries from Japan in order to suppress the natives of the Spice Islands. The spice trade also sparked territorial disputes with Britain, which eventually ended with a famous exchange of territory: the Dutch got the Spice Islands and the British got some island in the middle of nowhere called Manhattan.
Breakfast
Dutch breakfast is continental. It consists of bread, butter, cheese, jam, cold cuts, spice cake, and tea or coffee. The book Dutch Cooking has great background information and lots of recipes.
The spice cake ontbijtkoek, literally breakfast cake, is a legacy of the spice trade as it uses cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, and cardamon. None of these are native to Europe and all of them are used in large quantities. While we were grinding the spices for the cake, the plastic main shaft of our grinder broke. Attempts to grind the spices using a mortar and pestle proved ineffective. We decided to give the cake a pass and go with the bread, cheese, cured meat, and coffee.Outside of the spice cake, the breakfast is no work at all. I went to The Wine and Cheese Cask to get a delicious gouda, some rye bread with caraway seeds, and a nice piece of salami sliced very thin. (Salami, more international than you might think!) Other cheeses from the Netherlands that you might be able to find are edam and leyden.
Buying good bread, cheese, and meat make the meal. The salami and double-creamy gouda went really well together. We got great bread with a wonderfully hard crust and a really airy and soft interior.
Fun Bonus Fact
The Dutch province of Zeeland is the namesake for New Zealand, in case you ever wondered.
Dang, I thought I had this brilliant idea for an international breakfast blog, but when I went searching, found you'd already done it. Congrats :)
ReplyDelete(This morning, I made a Sicilian breakfast of coffee granita, whipped cream, and brioche!)
Funny! I am embarking on a similar "breakfast around the world" journey, to convince my husband that there's more to breakfast than scrambled eggs.
ReplyDeleteThe wildest thing I remember about breakfast in Holland on my 2 week stay was the hagelslag- chocolate sprinkles on buttered toast! They taste much better than American "jimmies", but the sugar puts Froot Loops to shame!
Sorry for my late reply... summer has been getting in the way of blog maintenance...
ReplyDelete@Jenny: Do please start your own breakfast blog! We cannot possibly cook everything ourselves. We usually link our sources in each post and eventually I will bring the book index up to date. Your library will be a great friend, too. Let us know when you start so we can follow along!
@chickenetti: We had heard of the chocolate sprinkle breakfast, too bad for our spice grinder we did not try that instead. Have fun on your breakfast journey, we have learned a lot and had a lot of great food so far!