Straight to the recipe The French origins of a Dutch soup ‘Queen’s Day‘ (Koninginnedag) was a national holiday in the Netherlands. It was celebrated on April 30, originally the birthday of Queen Juliana, grandmother of our King Willem-Alexander. Prior to Juliana’s ascension to the throne in 1949, Queen’s Day was celebrated on August 31, the birthday of Juliana’s…
France
CrÚme brûlée
Straight to the recipe An all-time favourite from the seventeenth century CrĂšme brĂ»lĂ©e is one of the most popular desserts. That probably has to do with the titillating contrast between the cold, creamy custard and the hard, hot layer of burned sugar. This dish should be prepared with care, because it can easily turn out wrong….
Hippocras, a medieval digestive
“To your health!” Sangria, punch and bishop wine all are descendants of spiced wines that have been drunk since Antiquity. They were especially populair in the Middle Ages, when they were served at the end of a meal as digestive. These wines, with added spices and sweetened with sugar (which was also considered a spice),…
Salmon in red wine-sauce
Straight to the recipe A recipe from the French Golden Age The first really new cookbooks since the Middle Ages did not appear before 1650. In France these cookbooks were the first onset to the development of the classical French “haute cuisine”. Up til the middle of the seventeenth century medieval classics Le MĂ©nagier de Paris and Le…
The day all France was vegetarian
Straight to the recipe Jean-Louis Flandrin, who died in 2001, wrote in his posthumously published book L’Ordre des mets that the reformation had such rapid succes in North-West Europe because of the prohibition of butter by the catholic church during Lent. Southern Europe used olive oil anyway, but in the North-West suet, lard and butter were the…
Royal peas
Well alright then, just the one! Straight to the recipe Garden peas were an absolute hype in the seventeenth century. They were enjoyed much the same way as we nowadays eat chocolate, like a delicious sin. Madame de Maintenon, mistress of Louis XIV wrote in 1696: “Il y a des dames qui, aprĂšs avoir soupĂ©, et bien soupĂ©, trouvent…