Dutch Culinary Icons

The Dutch are obsessed with the season’s first herring, called 'Hollandse nieuwe', which normally starts appearing at the beginning of June. They're often served with finely chopped raw onions and gherkins. It is, perhaps, an acquired taste.

The Dutch are crazy about licorice, or as they call it, 'drop', with the highest per capita consumption of licorice in the world (almost 4 1/2 pounds per person per year) giving the Dutch drop market a total value of $225,157,500. Foreigners often find the salty versions of drop rather strange.

Droste is best known for its chocolate pastilles and its oh-so-iconic nurse on its retro cocoa package design. Chocolate production in the Netherlands began in earnest in the 1820's, after Dutchman Coenraad J. van Houten invented the cocoa press, which made it possible to seperate cocoa fats from the cocoa mass, creating cocoa.

The Dutch have been making cheese since 400 AD. Nowadays, Holland is the largest exporter of cheese in the world. Its dairy industry as a whole has a turnover of around Euro 7 billion. Gouda cheese makes up about 50% of the cheese production in Holland, making it our most important and best-known cheese.

A popular Dutch breakfast consists of sliced bread with butter and 'hagelslag' (best described as being similar to those sprinkles you'd find on a cupcake: in chocolate, aniseed or fruit flavors).

While the Belgians to our south may claim mussels as one of their food icons, the Netherlands is the leading mussel supplier to the French and Belgian markets and one of the biggest mussel exporters worldwide. Look out for Zeeuwse mussels. They're from the Dutch coastal region Zeeland and are of the very best quality.

The little sister of 'speculaas', 'kruidnoten' (ginger nuts) are tiny rounded cookies eaten at 'Sinterklaas' (a traditional Dutch holiday on December 5). They're spiced with ginger, cinnamon, white pepper, cardamom, cloves and nutmeg.

The croquette (kroket in Dutch) is a beloved snack in the Netherlands. Those seeking quality will usually seek out Van Dobben brand veal croquettes, but the Dutch seem to have a penchant for guilty pleasures that sit behind a window and will often insert a coin into a Febo snackbar wall and retrieve their snack of choice.

'Rookworst' is a Dutch smoked sausage. It is most often eaten with 'stamppot' or 'hutspot' (both vegetable mashes). Rookworst is often referred to by popular rookworst brand names such as Unoxworst and Hemaworst. The taste is similar to that of a hotdog, except this is supersized and the skin is a bit crunchier to the bite.

Dutch apple pie is a fragrant mix of apples, sultanas, cinnamon and cloves encased in a sweet sandy-crisp crust. The large pie is baked in a deep springform tin and decorated with a criss-cross lattice crust on top.