Netherlands Cuisine

Dutch cuisine ( nl, Nederlandse keuken) is formed from the cooking traditions and practices of the Netherlands. The country's cuisine is shaped by its location in the fertile North Sea river delta of the European Plain, giving rise to fishing, farming (for crops and domesticated animals), and trading over sea, its former colonial empire and the spice trade.

Dutch cuisine is often seen as bland, due to a culture of frugality. In the late 19th and early 20th century, Dutch food became designed to be economical and filling rather than pleasing, with many vegetables and little meat: breakfast and lunch are typically bread with toppings like cheese, while dinner is meat and potatoes, supplemented with seasonal vegetables. The diet contains many dairy products and is relatively high in carbohydrates and fat, reflecting the dietary needs of the laborers. Without many refinements, it is best described as ''rustic'', though many holidays are celebrated with special foods.

During the 20th century, Dutch cuisine and diet changed. Influenced by the eating culture of its colonies (particularly the Dutch East Indies), it became more cosmopolitan and most international cuisines are represented in the major cities.

History

12th–13th centuries

Little evidence is available about food and drink in the late medieval Low Countries. In the consumption of pottage, the Low Countries were not very different from other Western European countries during the Middle Ages. Half-liquid pottage consisted of milk, beer, water, root vegetable and peas or grain, sometimes enriched with a piece of meat. The content changed throughout the seasons.

Beer flavoured with gruit was produced until the 14th century at the monasteries. Gruit was replaced with hop, a tradition introduced from the German city of Bremen, and this started off a beer culture and the Low Counties as a major exporter of beer. Beer was in medieval times the common drink as water was of poor quality, and milk—coming from the low-lying grasslands of Holland and Friesland—was mainly used for the production of butter and cheese. Dutch butter and cheese became famous products at an early stage and continued to be so for centuries.

14th–15th centuries

The sea and the rivers provided an abundance of fish. The process of gibbing was invented by Willem Beukelszoon, a 14th-century Zealand fisherman. The invention created an export industry for salt herring ( nl, maatjesharing) that was monopolized by the Dutch. They began to build ships and eventually moved from trading in herring to colonizing and the Dutch Lowlands (the Netherlands as a country did not exist until 1581), ultimately leading to the Dutch becoming a seafaring power.

Herring is still very important to the Dutch who celebrate ''Vlaggetjesdag'' (Flag Day) each spring, as a tradition that dates back to the 14th century when fishermen went out to sea in their small boats to capture the annual catch ( Hollandse Nieuwe), and to preserve and export their catch abroad.

Gardening was initially practiced by monasteries, but castles and country houses began also to develop gardens with herbs and vegetables and hunting grounds. The famous tourist attraction and flower park Keukenhof (literally ''kitchen garden'') is an example of a former 15th-century hunting ground and herbs garden for Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut's castle kitchen. Orchards for pears and apples connected to castles were later used for export and set off a Dutch horticulture tradition that remains to this day.

During the 15th century haute cuisine began to emerge, largely limited to the aristocracy. Cookery books from this period are aimed at the upper class. The first Dutch-language cook book printed in Brussels is called ''Een notabel boecxken van cokeryen'' (''A notable book of cookery'') from ca. 1510. It offers medieval recipes for festivities, such as sauces, game, jellies, fish, meat, pies, eggs, dairy products, candied quinces and ginger and contains one of the oldest known recipes for ''appeltaerten'', apple pie. The recipes come from various sources, 61 of them are translations of the French recipe book ''Le Viandier''.

Historically, Dutch cuisine was closely related to northern French cuisine, since the two countries have nearby borders and the Low Countries and Northern France have been historically ruled by the Dukes of Burgundy. This is still visible in traditional Dutch restaurants and the Southern regional cuisine, that is still colloquially referred to as ''Bourgondisch''.

16th–17th centuries

As the Dutch Republic entered its Golden Age in the 17th century, dishes of this kind became available to the wealthy middle class as well, often consisting of a rich variety of fruits, cheeses, meat, wine, and nuts. The Dutch Empire enabled spices, sugar, and exotic fruits to be imported to the country.

The Dutch East India Company was the first to import coffee on a large scale to Europe. The Dutch later grew the crop in Java and Ceylon. The first exports of Indonesian coffee from Java to the Netherlands occurred in 1711. By the late 17th century, tea and coffee consumption were increasing and becoming part of everyday life. Tea was served with sweets, candy or marzipan and cookies. The availability of relatively cheaper spices resulted in a tradition of spiced cookies called ''speculaas'', the exact recipes of which were kept secret by bakers.

Vegetables, meat, poultry and salted, smoked or fresh fish and eggs were prepared in the Dutch kitchens of the time. The meal started with green salads and cold or warm cooked vegetables with dressing, vegetable dishes with butter, herbs or edible flowers and continued with numerous fish and meat dishes.

Exotic ingredients such as dates, rice, cinnamon, ginger and saffron were used. Savoury tarts and pastries followed. The meal ended with jellies, cheese, nuts and sweet pastries, washed down with sweet spiced wine. Of course, even in the Golden Age, not everyone could afford such luxuries and the everyday meal of the ordinary Dutchman was still a humble affair of grain or legume pottage served with rye.

Dutch Golden Age – historical cuisine">
File:David Teniers the Younger-Kitchen Scene.jpg, Kitchen scene from 1644, with swan pie, game, fish and apples, by David Teniers the Younger
File:'Still-life (Ontbijtstuk with Berkemeyer)' by Pieter Claesz., Cincinnati.jpg, Mince pie and Lemon by Pieter Claesz, 1625
File:Clara Peeters - Still Life with Crab, Shrimps and Lobster - Google Art Project.jpg, Clara Peeters (1594–1657) Still Life with Crab, Shrimps and Lobster
File:Mesa (Clara Peeters).jpg, Clara Peeters (1594–1657) Table with Orange, Olives and Pie
File:WLA lacma Clara Peeters still life.jpg, Clara Peeters (1594–1657) Still life with Cheeses, Artichoke, and Cherries
File:Floris Van Dyck, Pièce de banquet.jpg, Still-Life with fruit, nuts and cheese by Floris Claeszoon van Dyck

18th–19th centuries

In the late 18th century the potato gained popularity, to become a staple food by 1800. In the early 19th century, while the rich could eat what they desired, the working population ate bread (rye bread in some areas) and potatoes, pancakes in some areas, occasionally fish and other seafood, fruit and vegetables, but usually little meat: "the diet of the Dutch in the nineteenth century consisted of some bread, and a great deal of potatoes". Their diet was frugal, composed of such simple dishes as bread and herring. Throughout the 19th century many people suffered from some form of malnutrition.

Potatoes, in fact, were often eaten at every meal, every day of the week. They were peeled and boiled for the main meal, lunch, and then warmed and mashed for dinner, with leftovers saved for breakfast. They were served with salt, sometimes vinegar, but without gravy or any other fat, making for a diet with "incredible monotony".

During the 19th century, the poor people drank little else but water (of poor quality), sometimes watery coffee (or chicory) or tea. In some areas hot chocolate was consumed, but the most popular drinks (beside water) were beer and jenever. For most of the century beer was drunk in the southern part, where Catholicism dominated, and in Catholic enclaves in the other areas. Jenever consumption early in the 19th century was twice that of the equivalent consumption of distilled spirits in neighbouring countries.

20th–21st centuries

The modest and plain look of what is nowadays considered the traditional Dutch cuisine, appears to be the result of a fairly recent development. In the twentieth century, the new availability of mass education meant that a great number of girls could be sent to a new school type, the ''Huishoudschool'' (housekeeping school), where young women were trained to become housewives and where lessons in cooking cheap and simple meals were a major part of the curriculum, often based on more traditional Dutch dishes, and leading to increased uniformity in the Dutch diet. Values taught in that school system included frugality, proper table manners, and healthy eating.

Regional cuisines

Modern culinary writers distinguish between three general regional forms of Dutch cuisine.

Northeastern cuisine

The regions in the north and east of the Netherlands, roughly the provinces of Groningen, Friesland, Drenthe, Overijssel and Gelderland north of the great rivers make up north eastern Dutch cuisine.

The region is the least populated area of the Netherlands. The late (18th century) introduction of large scale agriculture means that the cuisine is generally known for its many kinds of meats. The relative lack of farms allowed for an abundance of game and husbandry, though dishes near the coastal regions of Friesland, Groningen and the parts of Overijssel bordering the IJsselmeer also include a large amount of fish.

The various dried sausages, belonging to the '' metworst''-family of Dutch sausages, are found throughout the region and are highly prized for their often very strong taste. Most towns and various villages have their own variety of this sausage. The region also produces the traditional smoked sausages, of which (''Gelderse'') '' rookworst'' is the most renowned. These sausages traditionally have been smoked over wood chips, and are served after they have been boiled in water. The sausage contains a lot of fat and is very juicy. Larger sausages are often eaten alongside '' stamppot'', ''hutspot'' or ''zuurkool'' (sauerkraut); whereas smaller ones are often eaten as a street food. In Gelderland and Overijssel ' was a traditional food.

The provinces are also home to rye bread (a kind of Pumpernickel) and many kinds of pastries and cookies. In contrast to southern Dutch cuisine, which tends to be soft and moist, the northeastern rye bread and pastries generally are of a hard texture, and the pasties are heavily spiced with ginger or succade or contain small bits of meat. Various kinds of '' Kruidkoek'' (such as '), ' and ' (small savory pancakes cooked in a waffle iron) are considered typical.

Each of the provinces of Gelderland, Overijssel and Groningen has a long-standing rye bread tradition, but rye bread from Friesland became well known because of its taste. Notable characteristics of ' (Frisian rye bread) is its long baking time (up to 20 hours), resulting in a sweet taste and a deep dark color.

In terms of alcoholic beverages, the region is renowned for its many bitters (such as ''Beerenburg'') and other high-proof liquors rather than beer, which is, apart from '' Jenever'', typical for the rest of the country.

As a coastal region, Friesland is home to low-lying grasslands, and thus has a cheese production in common with the Western cuisine. ''Friese Nagelkaas'' ( Friesian Clove) is a notable example.

Western cuisine

The provinces of North Holland, South Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht and the Gelderlandic region of Betuwe are the parts of the Netherlands which make up the region in which western Dutch cuisine is found.

Due to the abundance of surface water and grassland, necessary to sustain dairy cattle, the area is known for its many dairy products, which for centuries includes prominent cheeses such as Gouda, Leyden (spiced cheese with cumin) and Edam (traditionally in small spheres), as well as relatively new trademarked cheese brands such as Leerdammer, and Beemster. Zeeland and South Holland produce a lot of butter, which contains a larger amount of milkfat than most other European butter varieties. A by-product of the butter-making process, buttermilk (''karnemelk''), is also considered typical for this region.

Seafood such as soused herring, mussels (called ''Zeeuwse Mosselen'', since all Dutch mussels for consumption are cleaned in Zeeland's Oosterschelde), eels, oysters and shrimps are widely available and typical for the region. '' Kibbeling'', once a local delicacy consisting of small chunks of battered white fish, has become a national fast food, just as '' Lekkerbekje''.

Indirectly a product of the sea is Ossenworst (''ox sausage''), a raw beef sausage originating in Amsterdam, which used to be made of ox meat. This specialty has its origins in the seventeenth century, when oxen were imported large-scale from Denmark and Germany. The spices in the sausage, such as pepper, cloves, mace and nutmeg, came from the Dutch East Indies. Traditionally, aged beef was used for this sausage, that was then smoked at a low temperature such that the meat remained raw. Present-day Amsterdam ossenworst is made with lean beef, and the sausage is now often neither smoked nor aged. It is often eaten with ''Amsterdamse uitjes'', a kind of pickled onion

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