AmsterDAMN! April 2024

Amanda, former journalist, retired chef and amateur photographer possessed with the self-confidence of a human bulldozer and, as it turned out, our food tour guide for the day, explained that the Dutch don’t have a national cuisine so much as a greatest hits collection of other people’s. We’d opted to take the tour in the hope of better familiarising ourselves with the culinary history of this great city so were a little surprised to be told that Dutch food, at least when you subtract the bulk of international and colonial influences, is essentially a riff on disappointing potato dishes.

She expanded on this colonial aspect of the nation’s “found” cuisine while we were sat inside at one of the city’s many undeniably quaint canal-side cafés. If anything our presence at the café was an unwanted distraction, since the café owners, much like everyone else in Amsterdam  were busy setting up for King’s Day, a national celebration due to kick-off that evening. Outside, people were running cables to elaborate lighting rigs and sound systems, while other busied themselves with pop-up beer dispensers, the sound of belly laughs and electric drills adding to the gathering sense of giddy anticipation around what is billed as the world’s largest street party. Everyone we met already seemed to have had a couple of drinks.

Back inside the café things were altogether more sedate. There were twelve of us seated in a neat semi-circle around the indefatigable Amanda. Most were holidaying couples keen to extract maximum enjoyment from a short city-break, along with a handful of student types and solo travellers. As we ate our sandwiches Amanda explained that rendang, like so many of the dishes now considered national staples, could be traced back to the 17^th century Dutch colonial enterprise, notably the Spice Trade and the establishment of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (the Dutch East Indies Company) in what is now Indonesia. The way she told the story of Dutch colonialism was in the quaintly untroubled rose-tinted-melting-pot tradition reserved for tourists, History Channel documentaries and Conservative MPs, which is to say mostly bullshit.  

Happily, news of Holland’s unexceptional foundational cuisine came as something of a relief, since the previous night Debbie and I had sought out a restaurant serving what it labelled as ‘authentic Dutch’, only to be presented with what no amount of fussy presentation could disguise was a watery plate of sausage and mash. When presented with this hearty fare so stunned was I by the uncanny resemblance to my mother’s go-to Tuesday night dinner of the 1980s and 90s that I felt compelled to ask a passing waiter whether she was out back running the kitchen. Which is not to disparage sausage and mash, although there is a universe of difference between good quality and bad. I once watched a cookery programme presented by the great Albert Roux, who made a mash so decadent, so overflowing with luxuriant butters and heavy cream that even he admitted to having pushed the limit of culinary decency beyond all reasonable bounds. You should enjoy it sparingly he said, looking coyly into the camera.

So why then, one wonders, had the globetrotting Dutch and renowned producers of superlative diary-based delights, not consulted more widely on such an important matter? Why had they not peeked over the border of literally any other European country to see how they were making theirs? The giant cartoonish Dutch man who dragged us off the street into his bespoke highstreet cheesery certainly thought so, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to extract thirty-quid so artfully for a couple of miniature wheels we later saw on sale at the local Spa for half the price. In her defense Amanda did, it must be said, point out that the Dutch were surprisingly late the potato party, and like most other European nations initially treated it with such abiding suspicion that for a time they could only bring themselves to feed it to the pigs. When they finally took the plunge it was only on the condition that they “boil the absolute arse out of them” to quote an equally mystified Debbie.

I’m not quite sure what I was expecting but what appeared on my plate that night and presumably the plates of countless unhappy Dutch children for generations past was a potato-swede combo laced with sauerkraut. Not exactly unpleasant, just unexpectedly and extraordinarily robust in a way that adds a certain exaggerated wobble to your walk. Next to the mash was placed a large, alarmingly red processed sausage of the kind you see sweating inside vac-packed bags at the supermarket. Debbie’s meal was more or less identical to mine, the only difference being that her sausage had been sliced, revealing a kind of carpet underlay texture presumably so that the waiter could tell them apart.

Casting an eye around the place it was clear that most of the dishes on the menu were a variation of the same, the main point of difference being choice and presentation of the sausage component. To help this go down the chef had taken a brief respite from what one imagines to be long, punishing bouts of vigorous mashing to whip up a miniscule serving of a gravy so thin, so arrestingly incorporeal, that it took a feat of imagination merely to recognise it as a concept. The question that troubled us then, and which Amanda would later answer, was whether this was just another uninspiring eating experience or indeed the authentic Dutch cuisine that we had been promised. All evidence pointed to the latter.

Loaded with carbohydrates and strong dark beer I tried to picture a typical Dutch kitchen on the walk back to the hotel. It looks much like your kitchen or mine, perhaps little tidier, only here there is a conspicuous wooden cabinet screwed to the wall in an elevated, one might say reverential position. It is of a simple yet well-crafted design and clearly old. The passing of time has loosened the dovetails a little, and at some point the door has been rehung with modern screws. Years of dutiful waxing have cut the tawny sheen of the oak to a deep resinous black. Truly it is a thing of beauty and great familial significance. It is the kind of treasure that leads to much protective sibling bickering later down the line, for this is where the Dutch keep the most treasured family possession, the one thing that they would dash into the flames to retrieve, passed down from one generation to the next, to be held in the highest esteem until it is time for the Ceremony of Succession, for this, THIS, is where they keep the heirloom potato masher.

Coming as I do from England with its equally solid foundation of hearty potato-based cuisine, I obviously can’t be too snobbish about these things. But based on what little information I was given over the course of our three-day visit I think Amanda may have been correct in her initial assertion. Under such underwhelming conditions, a bit of fermented herring and a beef rendang sandwich would, in a literal sense, blow your fucking mind. Imagine your first taste of coconut milk or habanero after a lifetime of sauerkraut mash?  Its as though austerity mattered as much the calorific content. Food as sustenance only and that sort of thing, as if adding a piece of butter to your mash was as good as being caught in flagrante with a neighbour’s goat, which is a little odd since Amanda spent a decent amount of time telling us that the Dutch are a instinctively liberal minded people, so you’d be forgiven for expecting a little dairy-based licentiousness.  It’s much the same with so called peasant food everywhere in Europe of course.

What’s interesting is that while Italy and France transformed their respective farmer’s diets into a cuisine adored the world over, the Dutch by contrast opted to go out for dinner. And boy did they. The audio guide I picked up for a trip around Rembrandt’s House informed me that the Dutch colonial empire, controlled and administered by the Dutch West India Company, made The Netherlands, and Amsterdam in particular, one of the major trading centres of the world, while also profiting massively from the exploitation of colonised people and their cultures. What echoes you find of these food cultures is said to be in the diversity of the menu. There were certainly a lot of Argentinian Steak Houses, which may or may not be a coda back to increased Dutch presence in Argentina in the late 1880s when there was a recruitment drive to attract European farmers to settle in the Pampas frontier. Either that or the Dutch just really like a thick-cut Argentinian steak, and frankly who doesn’t. We actually started our food tour at a historic café in the Jordaan district of the city who, according to Amanda, had been selling pastries for longer than the United States has existed. Their signature dish was a deep filled unsweetened apple pie made with a full pastry casing served with a squirt of canned cream. The recipe, we were told, hadn’t changed in over a century and for good reason, attracting people from the world over who stand out in the rain for a generous slice of this delicious pie. It had the rustic appeal of something made well and with a tangible sense of its own heritage. It was the main item on the menu and may have been the only item on the menu which I chose to enjoy with a small glass of beer. As with the other cafes we visited this one was also busy laying-in a huge stock of extra pies in preparation for King’s Day.

The story we were given was that pining for a taste of home, Dutch settlers in the would-be USA established orchards at every possible opportunity. It is for this reason, Amanda was quick to point out, that the expression ‘as American as apple pie’ is misleading, but I’m pretty confident that the Germans and French make similar claims. At any rate it was delicious.

Earlier in the tour Amanda had told us how Jewish migrants had likewise brought with them an assortment of fried fish dishes now firmly established in the national psyche. These were delicate little parcels of battered haddock and cod served with the ubiquitous bright yellow hotdog mustard that I have come to adore, along with lashings of mayonnaise. Some of these we sampled while standing on a picturesque bridge much to the vocal irritation of passing cyclists who not only seem to have the right of way in any given situation in Holland, but also super-judicial powers of life and death over bumbling pedestrians. Everywhere we went I kept a lookout for the sign proclaiming ‘cyclists must not be impeded’ or ‘pedestrian = prey’ but my eye was always drawn to the temporary King’s Day banners warning visitors that they risked a hefty fine if caught ‘wild pissing’ after one too many strong Dutch lager. By chance I had only that morning read an article in the Guardian about a discrimination case brought against the city by a female visitor who had been fined at the previous King’s Day after being caught short and forced to duck into an alley for a spot of alfresco urination. Her argument was that while there were many pop-up public urinals for men, the same districts often had only meagre female facilities if any, meaning the anti-urination law had an obvious gender bias. She won the case, and now the Dutch authorities are legally bound to provide adequate equivalent options for all. I took a closer look at one of the giant blue plastic temporary urinals that were being lowered into position all over the city. This was a new phenomenon for me, each unit essentially a large hexagon approximately three metres tall with a kind of open, weirdly inviting vaginal opening on each side shielded by modesty baffles. Beset with social anxieties as I am, I inwardly remarked that I would sooner jump in the canal than try to use one of these things. Almost certainly I would over think the entire operation and would somehow, inexplicably, end up on the local evening news as a fire crew tried to cut me free.

“Where does it all go?” I asked Debbie, pointing at one of hexagonal atrocities. “Is it plumbed into the sewers somehow, or does it simply fill up?”

“I really don’t know.”

“If it just fills up it would weigh goodness knows how much, several hundred pounds at least, all sloshing about and throwing off the centre of gravity. But then I can’t see any connecting pipes? And surely there is an horrific risk of drunks – Brits most likely– trying to tip one over? I’m almost tempted to try.”

“I’m sure I don’t know, and please don’t.”

Looking at these things in use with each of the bases fully loaded is quietly horrifying yet also a genuine tip of the hat to civilisation solving a distasteful problem. This in itself was distraction enough, but we also learned that one of the other many eccentric rituals of King’s Day is that people stake out little sections of the pavement using lengths of gaffer tape and chalk lines to mark the boundary of their territory. This is to ensure that you have somewhere to stand with your mates once the insanity of the day really gets going, while also saying something about the Dutch colonial sprit. That people seem to respect this tradition is remarkable, although I do have my doubts and wonder to what extent people would defend the sovereignty of their little space and on what basis. It was all rather reminiscent of those people who get up early to place beach towels on sun loungers and then go back to bed.

I also learned that the other reason people do this is to ensure they have a spot to set up a small table from which to flog their old unwanted household crap. That’s right, in amongst the festival of wild pissing and bouncing carnival atmosphere hundreds, possibly thousands of people indulge in what is effectively a city-wide jumble sale. We passed dozens of tables laden with tasteless ceramic figurines, old toys, piles of tired looking clothes and the kind of miscellaneous garbage that we can’t quite bring ourselves to throwaway. I didn’t think to ask, but I did wonder if part of the King’s Day ritual is to bring home a new piece of garbage to add to your pile which you then try to sell the following year, a kind of vast metaphor for our dependency on unfulfilling materialism. Those without tables spread their wares out on the pavement or along any available ledge, which I must say adds a sense of gently dystopian chaos to what is an extremely manicured city. I looked around for a potato masher but as expected there were none on display, these being objects of serious ritualistic significance and therefore protected by law.

From there we headed out to sample little goujons of fried cod, several pieces of pickled herring, various cheeses, a sausage roll that got far more build-up than it deserved, and finally a round of bitterballen, which were on the menu pretty much anywhere that served alcohol, which is to say everywhere. These are, surprisingly enough, fried meat balls with a breaded outer shell served with a distinctive mustard that sits somewhere between a hot English and French’s Yellow. Whoever thought to pair such a simple yet satisfying snack with beers should have a memorial somewhere in the centre of town, because there is something moreish and tantalisingly puerile about being served a steaming plate of hot balls that never fails to amuse. As tradition demands, we ate ours with Jenever, a potent clear spirit that hits like a Tyson uppercut, with Amanda insisting that the only way to eat bitterballen was to cleanse the palate with a shot of ethanol and then dive in for some more hot ball action. I think I ate about thirty, but my memory is little foggy.

It was an enjoyable tour, and I’m convinced that one of the great ways to explore a new city is a food walking tour. You do feel a bit silly at times, huddled around a local grocers to coo over the unpasteurised cheeses, but other than that it feels like you’ve descended from the usual tourist altitude to a level where you feel closer to the local details. Amanda was entertaining if not a little meandering, and she reminded me of a woman I would often see walking around town with three large Labradors that she barely ever had under control and always seemed to be at the brink of breaking free in as many as six different directions.