Although actually it’s English! The Dutch consider Bishop wine as a typically Dutch mulled wine for Sint Nicholas Eve. But it appears that its origins are not Dutch at all. According to the large Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal (Lexicon of the Dutch Language, published in installments from 1864 to 1998), bisschopswijn has English roots. The name indicates the…
Netherlands
Stamppot – Traditional Dutch Winterfare
Warming, loving, substantial food While I am writing this (2 December 2010) it’s freezing cold outside, the canal in front of my house is frozen, and everything is covered with a layer of snow. Apparently I live near a salt depot, for in the last half hour I have counted five gritting lorries loaded with…
Traditional Dutch potato salad
Russian Salad the Dutch way I suppose Russian Salad is a popular dish all over the world, but I wonder whether it is as connected with festive holidays as in the Netherlands, where it is called Hussar’s Salad (‘Huzarensalade’). It is a traditional dish on New Year’s Eve, presented as a clock with the hands…
Custard with ratafia
Straight to the recipe A delicious dessert from the eighteenth century Vla ( ), a kind of custard, is very popular in the Netherlands as dessert, but it is seldom home-made. Industrial custard is made with sugar and carbohydrates, but no eggs. How different it was during the eighteenth century! Look at the recipe below and…
A medieval evergreen
Very, very healthy! In Asterix in Britain, the heroes Asterix and Obelix’ first meal on British soil is eaten in a pub called ‘The Jolly Boar’. Obelix is deeply disappointed, his favourite boar has not been roasted, but boiled. To make matters even worse, it is served in a green mint sauce. Boring. Had Obelix lived fourteen centuries later,…
Mock eggs for Lent
Just for fun Straight to the recipe This an extra recipe with the Medieval coloured easter Eggs. During Lent, between carnival and Easter, no eggs were eaten. But sometimes eggs did appear on the table, as a joke. These were mock eggs, made with pike roe (also eggs, but from fish, so these were permitted) or…
Dutch bitterballen from leftover oxtail meat
With oxtail meat and stock and dried ceps For the family Christmas dinner in 2014 I had prepared an old-fashioned clear oxtail consommé as first course. I ended up with leftover stock and a lot of leftover meat from the oxtail. I froze part of the meat with 3 cups of the stock, and when two months later…
Refreshing almond lemonade
Straight to the recipe This is a recipe with a short introduction, belonging to the series of recipes for the group stage of the WC Soccer 2019 for women. Each day I published a recipe from a country that was playing on that day, and the Netherlands played their first game on Tuesday 11 June….
Fish with leeks for Lent
Straight to the recipe Herring, often in preserved form, is very important food for medieval people. During the fifteenth century, when the recipe on this page was written, one could buy very salty pickle herring, dried herring en smoked herring. The English have, just like the Dutch, several kinds of smoked herring, like kipper, bloater…
Verjuice
Wine nor vinegar Literally verjuice means ‘green juice’ (from French ‘jus vert’). It is the juice from unripe grapes, unripe apples, sorrel, goose berries, whatever, as long as it is sour. It is a common ingredient in medieval recipes, and even in later recipes up to the seventeenth century. Then it was no longer in…
Fake Fish
Straight to the recipe Medieval apple pie for Lent Lent – The fishy season In the Middle Ages the catholic church prescribed what was on the daily menu. Each week counted at least one day, and more often three or even four days (depending on where and when in medieval Europe) during which no meat…
Macaroni with tomatoes
Straight to the recipe From the Oorlogs-kookboek (‘War-cookbook’) from 1918 This is a Dutch recipe from World War I, also known as the Great War. The peoples of all the combatant nations dealt with hunger, food shortage and rationing (see here). The Netherlands remained neutral … The Netherlands did not participate in the war. At the…