Drink me
There you have it: I'm through. There's no Dutch food left in this house*.
They say that you are what you eat, and until now I've always been able to sustain myself at least partly on Dutch food... But!:
Bread and bananas have disappeared in the first few days. Followed by the smeerkaas, apples, peperkoek (and yes, everyone in Exeter now knows peperkoek: they wouldn't understand if you would start about "ontbijtkoek"), roggebrood, stroop, stroopwafels; the salami has been used in meatballs, the garlic put in every dish so far, the Swedish toast used in many cases of ermergency, the German kneidl were delicious in a Chinese lemonsauce together with cabbage and now even the drop is almost completely gone ... it's time to shift to an all-British diet.
Here I present some of my discoveries in the English foodscape.
Let us start with drinks.
They have an enormous variety in limonadesiropen which go under a number of names. You have fruit drinks (dilution: a must), barley waters, fruit and barley, squash, cordial... don't ask me to explain the differences (except that barley water contains barley). They come in all colours and tastes (not necessarily related). Some are nothing special (coming down to simple grenadine), some are new to me (pink grapefruit and barley for one), and some are blissfully reminding of camping in France... Only in France they don't come in concentrated form, which makes England the sympathetic one in this matter.
Last week was also the first time I had a cranberrry and raspberry juice drink. I'm sure they have that in the Netherlands too, in some uppish supermarket chain which won't be named here, but I'm sure juices like these are much cheaper in Britain - and otherwise I'll just cherish the illusion. (It's always a disappointment if you find out that that special holiday-time discovery can be obtained in your home country jut as easily...) It tastes good!
But then there is British alcohol legislation... I won't give a dissertation on age restrictions and pub opening hours in this place - except that I'll just say that, though I favour the new (later) closing times, I don't think they will solve any problems until Britain has gained a new, continental, drinking culture. This would include drinking more wine, drinking for taste and not effect, and drinking outdoors, where the (stimulating?) noise is less and problematic cases can cool off. In other words: problems won't be solved until the British climate, British temperatures will have changed. But we're well on our way.
My own experiences with legislation: over the bread in Sainsbury's hangs a notification that if I look under 21, I might have to produce my ID for this purchase. Fortunately this has never happened, as I don't carry my passport with me. In the meantime I did succeed in buying several alcohol-containing beverages. In Tesco however, where I bought one innocent bottle of wine, together with A., who is even older than I am, we were asked the brilliant question: "Which of you is buying this item?" But weren't we clever? We said: "we're buying it together!" Ahum...
So let's follow my own advice and talk about taste. Much to my embarassment I did not drink a real ale yet. Maybe tomorrow. I did drink a lot of Guinness as you know, so there's one culinary discovery. Also, I learnt about pear cider and that it only comes in bottles of 50 cl. Delicious. Fortified wine: nice too. Only slightly, ehm, fortified. But you won't notice anymore once you had a glass. (Other people will, though.)
All in all, I didn't drink much alcohol in the UK as yet. Much too expensive.
Oh, but I do like that when you go to a semi-formal occasion with a group of people from work or university, and you get drinks and fingerfood: they do not call it a "borrel", they call it a drink. Bless them.
So far for this incoherent post. Food is next.
P.S. Why have I not quoted anything Alice in this post (apart from the title)? (Un)fortunately, there's no chapter in the book that's not about English food and drinks...
They say that you are what you eat, and until now I've always been able to sustain myself at least partly on Dutch food... But!:
Bread and bananas have disappeared in the first few days. Followed by the smeerkaas, apples, peperkoek (and yes, everyone in Exeter now knows peperkoek: they wouldn't understand if you would start about "ontbijtkoek"), roggebrood, stroop, stroopwafels; the salami has been used in meatballs, the garlic put in every dish so far, the Swedish toast used in many cases of ermergency, the German kneidl were delicious in a Chinese lemonsauce together with cabbage and now even the drop is almost completely gone ... it's time to shift to an all-British diet.
Here I present some of my discoveries in the English foodscape.
Let us start with drinks.
They have an enormous variety in limonadesiropen which go under a number of names. You have fruit drinks (dilution: a must), barley waters, fruit and barley, squash, cordial... don't ask me to explain the differences (except that barley water contains barley). They come in all colours and tastes (not necessarily related). Some are nothing special (coming down to simple grenadine), some are new to me (pink grapefruit and barley for one), and some are blissfully reminding of camping in France... Only in France they don't come in concentrated form, which makes England the sympathetic one in this matter.
Last week was also the first time I had a cranberrry and raspberry juice drink. I'm sure they have that in the Netherlands too, in some uppish supermarket chain which won't be named here, but I'm sure juices like these are much cheaper in Britain - and otherwise I'll just cherish the illusion. (It's always a disappointment if you find out that that special holiday-time discovery can be obtained in your home country jut as easily...) It tastes good!
But then there is British alcohol legislation... I won't give a dissertation on age restrictions and pub opening hours in this place - except that I'll just say that, though I favour the new (later) closing times, I don't think they will solve any problems until Britain has gained a new, continental, drinking culture. This would include drinking more wine, drinking for taste and not effect, and drinking outdoors, where the (stimulating?) noise is less and problematic cases can cool off. In other words: problems won't be solved until the British climate, British temperatures will have changed. But we're well on our way.
My own experiences with legislation: over the bread in Sainsbury's hangs a notification that if I look under 21, I might have to produce my ID for this purchase. Fortunately this has never happened, as I don't carry my passport with me. In the meantime I did succeed in buying several alcohol-containing beverages. In Tesco however, where I bought one innocent bottle of wine, together with A., who is even older than I am, we were asked the brilliant question: "Which of you is buying this item?" But weren't we clever? We said: "we're buying it together!" Ahum...
So let's follow my own advice and talk about taste. Much to my embarassment I did not drink a real ale yet. Maybe tomorrow. I did drink a lot of Guinness as you know, so there's one culinary discovery. Also, I learnt about pear cider and that it only comes in bottles of 50 cl. Delicious. Fortified wine: nice too. Only slightly, ehm, fortified. But you won't notice anymore once you had a glass. (Other people will, though.)
All in all, I didn't drink much alcohol in the UK as yet. Much too expensive.
Oh, but I do like that when you go to a semi-formal occasion with a group of people from work or university, and you get drinks and fingerfood: they do not call it a "borrel", they call it a drink. Bless them.
So far for this incoherent post. Food is next.
P.S. Why have I not quoted anything Alice in this post (apart from the title)? (Un)fortunately, there's no chapter in the book that's not about English food and drinks...
*for the sake of effect not counting some minor storages of chocolate letter
posted by Anna P.H. Geurts | 6:27 pm
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