I love British food. More than that, I love British snacks. Sausage rolls, scotch eggs, pasties, pies, crumpets, crisps, peanuts, the breadth of our biscuiting arena, sandwiches, tea cakes, scones, Eccles cakes, barms, cobs, rolls and buns, hams and cheeses, and pickles and chutneys and everything in between.
I spent some time with family in Amsterdam over the Easter weekend. In this context, part of me would like to detail the four days of eating, snacking, and cooking à la Rebecca May Johnson, but if I did there might appear a rhythmic monotony to the schedule of herring, Bitterballen, fried cheese sticks, little beers and then back again, same snacks, different day; rhythmic monotony is absolutely not how it felt though. Perhaps unfairly, I have always perceived there to be a simplicty to Dutch food, but as I understand more and more about how the Dutch eat, I find more and more that appeals about their approach.
One morning having cycled over to my brother-in-law’s flat, we ended up having a chat with one of their neighbors as we locked up our bikes. From where in the UK did we hail, they asked? London, we replied. We are coming to the UK this summer, they told us, where would we recommend they travel? Some discussion ensued, a route taking in the south coast along to Dorset, Devon, and then up to Wales for some walking in the Brecon Beacons was suggested. Charming, we all agreed. And then came their main anxiety for the trip. The food.
I’ll be honest I scoffed. Or at least the Londoner in me scoffed. Our food is amazing in the UK. I stopped a beat. Or is our food scene amazing? And what about this couple’s route from Ashford to Dorset, Devon, and then up to Wales? Pubs on the outskirts of villages, local shops that close on Wednesday afternoons and Sundays, rural takeaways stripped of intrigue and difference by years of reductive local tastes, the one ‘good’ (and often extortionately expensive) local restaurant where a chef who has watched too much Masterchef is keen to show off their way with scallops or wild garlic. There will of course be some great food along the way, that pub that does perfectly simple cooking with local ingredients, that one village shop with interesting produce, tasty little treats from local producers, that farm shop that is worth a diversion from the beaten path. Imagine you don’t find these places though. Imagine you’re relying on a combination of service stations, supermarkets, and underwhelming pubs along your route. Imagine this route doesn’t take you into any of the main centers, doesn’t happen to wind through the beautiful village, the well-stocked town. You might also come to the conclusion that British food isn’t always much to write home about.
Contrast this with Dutch food. There is much less breadth, sure. Every list and video on the internet consists largely of the same treats. A collection of fried things (Bitterballen, Kroket, Kaasstengel, etc,) some meat things (Ossenworst, steak Americain, Frikandel, etc), and then some international treats (often adopted as a by-product of their colonial past) such as Surinamese Roti and the Turkish-Dutch Kapsalon, which is basically cheesy chips meets shawarma and salad. I am being deliberately provocative, for sure, but apart from the ubiquitous and freeform institution that is Borel, the equally flexible yet more direct Stamppot, and the people's favorite the cheese sandwich, many of the main options in the Netherlands have been ticked off.
And yet, there is something utilitarian and democratic about the options for eating in the Netherlands. Be you in Amsterdam, den Haag, Rotterdam, or any village up and down the country you will be able to walk into a cafe or bar and order a beer and a very decent Bitterballen. There is almost no ranking of Bitterballen as far as I can tell, they are the same, and as good, regardless of where you order them. My understanding is they are more often than not bought in from a central supplier and normally cooked by the bar staff themselves. Googling ‘best Bitterballen in Amsterdam’ reveals a list of the best places to eat Bitterballen, rather than the best Bitterballen themselves.
Similarly, pass through most stations, many high streets, and almost all villages, and you will find a snack bar. In high footfall areas this might be a shop with a wall of snacks like a giant vending machine, in less busy areas and villages it will be a cafe that looks to our mind more like a fish’n’chip shop, but either way, within, you will find a series of breaded and fried snacks with names like Kroket, Bami, Kaassouffles, maybe also a fried burger and a sausage called a Frikandel. Again, be you in the center of Amsterdam or a snack bar in a village outside Breda, your offering and the quality of the offering will be largely the same. Of course, there will be small regional variations, but genuinely, up and down the country you can eat the food you’ve been brought up on, readily and pleasingly.
If for a moment we apply the same logic to British food, we find ourselves a little stumped. Take a sausage roll. Classic, widely available, a portable and, at its best, pleasing thing to eat when on the go. A fine sausage roll with buttery pastry, rich fatty coarse ground meat, maybe a bit of gentle spicing from fennel seeds or some interest from herbs, inhaled with a dab of mustard at timely intervals; this is a thing to celebrate and be proud of. Imagine then that same concept but purchased in a service station, or a Greggs, or on the counter of a neglected pub, or from the refrigerated cabinet in a corner shop or supermarket. Extrapolate forward to scotch eggs, pasties, even the great British institution, the sandwich. The inconsistency of quality, the cavernous distance between the best you’ll buy and the worst, tells me exactly why that nice Dutch mother I spoke to that morning was concerned about the food offered on her summer holiday in the UK.
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