May 19, 2015

Americans try Dutch sweets and survive

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 11:21 am

Honingdrop

After having Americans try sweets and foods from many other countries, the Dutch held their breath to find out what happens in the recently released ‘Americans Try Dutch Sweets’ video.

Sometimes you know the panel is going to hate it, but it’s tough to find anyone that hates ‘stroopwafels’ (‘syrup waffles’). When I travel abroad and need to bring a small gift, stroopwafels are my best bet. You should warm them up on a mug of coffee or tea and then eat them or buy mini-stroopwafels and eat the whole bag.

Haribo is a German company and Germans as well as other nationalities also enjoy drop, so even if drop is more of a Dutch favourite, it’s always fun to see people’s reaction to trying it for the first time, like babies biting into a lemon and wincing their cute little faces.

‘Boterkoek’ (‘butter cake’) is easy to like, so no weirdness there, just a buttery taste. ‘Autodrop cadillacs’ (‘gummy pink cadillacs’) are nice because the strawberry flavour is not artificial and you can do wonders with the caddies on cupcakes. And yes, gummy products are originally German. The rum beans are bean-shaped chocolates filled with rum, although you need to pop them into your mouth in one go or else. I have no idea who came up with the brilliant idea for this type of sweet, but chocolate and rum is an international combo of deliciousness.

I say we need at least a second video with many more types of cakes and cookies (hey look, a Dutch word that made into English, from ‘koekjes’) and possibly a few other regional delicacies.

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May 3, 2015

Homemade lollipop kit with your own ingredients

Filed under: Design,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 9:59 pm

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Dutch designer Tessa Geuze presented a lollipop-making kit during Milan Design Week 2015 a few weeks ago as a member of the The Tomorrow Collective, a group of students who showcased a range of products and tools ‘inspired by past knowledge of how to grow, make and be’.

Geuze’s ‘Something Sweet’ kit features the components required for a miniature sweet factory including aluminium lollipop moulds, scoops, heat-proof mitts, and a display stand that also serves as a storage box for the utensils. She produced the kit as a way for people to make lollipops using ingredients they know without preservatives and additives like the ones listed on the wrappers of store-bought sweets.

Making your own sweets is something I picture parents doing with their kids or creative people doing for a theme party, but I wonder if most people would go through the trouble of making their own sweets instead of buying the lollipops with preservatives and additives. However, it does look like fun.

(Link and photo: www.dezeen.com)

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September 25, 2014

Old pictures of Zeeland tell their own story

Filed under: History,Photography by Orangemaster @ 10:11 am

Dutchpicold

These pictures of the Netherlands were taken by a Northumbrian photographer and show what the Dutch wore some 100 years ago. The women are not wearing national dress as the source indicates, but regional dress because the Netherlands is big enough to have had different styles. True, the past was “crisp, sharp and as high resolution” as today. And no, the little girl on the left is probably not smoking, but enjoying a traditional ‘stroopsoldaatje’ (‘syrup soldier’), a small paper cone filled with syrup, which you can still buy today.

The woman on the right below with different traditional attire than the girls looks like a woman from Zeeland, like this woman and margarine brand Zeeuws meisje. Looking more closely at the photograph, the ‘cafe restaurant’ on the right has a sign that says ‘on parle français’, (‘we speak French’), which tells me this is Zeeland as it borders Belgium, and back then the Flemish spoke a lot of French. Research tells me the ‘book, music and art store’ in the back could be 1465 De Koninklijke Boek-, Muziek- en Kunsthandel van F.B. den Boer in Middelburg, Zeeland on the corner of Lange Delft and Markt. There’s also a woman on the far right dressed quite normal for her era.

For a modern-day version of looking at Dutch people wearing traditional garb, you can visit the religious community of Staphorst, Overijssel who still dress according to local tradition.

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(Link and photos: www.bbc.com, Tip: Thanks Fred!)

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