November 4, 2008

Ordering food at the restaurant from a computer

Filed under: Dutch first,Food & Drink,Technology by Orangemaster @ 9:49 am
Touchscreenfoodmachine

Waiting for your order at a restaurant is never any fun. Restaurant ‘t Hart van Breda has solved this problem by installing a computer that takes orders: you click on a computer screen from your table and voilà . You can even play computer games and chat with guests of the place as well. According to owner Nanda Koomans, “it’s in tune with the times. We have a young target group who lives and works digitally. This is perfect for them.” She emphasises the popularity of the system using an example. “Yesterday we had a group of girls and boys that were chatting with each other. After their digital talk they all went outside to go out together as a group. That’s of course very nice!”

There are also eight “digital free” tables out of the 26 for the non computer-savvy. The system was developed in Israël where its introduction has usually led to an increase in turnover. Although the initial investment is pricy, Koomans believes it is worth it.

I’d rather use a computer than get stressed out over the service in the Netherlands, but computers break down and make mistakes too. Life is tough.

(Link: fok.nl)

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October 27, 2008

Healthy purple tomatoes may fight cancer

Filed under: Food & Drink,Science by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am
Purple tomato

British and Dutch scientists have developed a new, purple-coloured tomato. Research shows that this tomato is very healthy and protects people against the onset of some types of cancer.

According to the research institute Plant Research International of the Wageningen University, two genes of the snapdragon flower (antirrhinum) have been added to the tomato through genetic modification. These genes are needed to produce anthocyanins, purple-coloured antioxidants, which can also be found in blackberries, strawberries and cranberries.

Not only do anthocyanins protect against certain types of cancers, but also against heart and vascular diseases. Moreover, anthocyanins are said to be anti-inflammatory. The new tomatoes worked well on mice that are very prone to getting cancer.

(Link and photo: gelderlander.nl)

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October 23, 2008

FEBO croquette more expensive than Fortis shares

Filed under: Food & Drink,General by Orangemaster @ 5:12 pm
kroket1.jpg

A croquette (in Dutch ‘kroket’)(more info here) at the Dutch fast food chain FEBO is currently more expensive than a share of Benelux bank Fortis, according to the Amsterdam Stock Exchange of today. At 13:30 CET the Fortis share was a steal at EUR 0,98.

A croquette at FEBO costs EUR 1,20. A ‘vitaaltje’ (vegetarian croquette) is just one euro during all of October.

The Fortis bank recently had to be bailed out by the Dutch government because of the international credit crisis. Since then its share price has been taking a beating, to put it mildly.

But hey, there’s always junk food.

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October 14, 2008

Two odd acts of mindless violence

Filed under: Food & Drink,General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 9:34 am
Street tile

Last Saturday, a 31-year-old man from Zwolle, Overijssel beat up a lumpia (spring roll) seller because the man did not sell vegetarian spring rolls. When the 60-year-old spring roll seller told him this last Saturday, the client got angry and beat the older man repeatedly in the face and on the head. A security guard of the shopping centre where the spring roll stand is located intervened and held the angry man until the police came to draw up a complaint.

Last Sunday in Nijmegen, Gelderland, a 31-year-old taxi driver ran over a 29-year-old man because he refused to pay his taxi driver colleague. The 29-year-old client was driven around for hours in a taxi and when the meter had reached an amount of 250 euro, the man couldn’t pay. He got out of the car and walked away. Two taxi drivers came to the ‘rescue’, with one of them driving over the reluctant client. A witness saw the incident and called the police.

What’s with this street tile of a ladybug? Since 1999 it has been the Dutch symbol for “no mindless violence” and can be found in front of bars, clubs and other places where fights usually break out.

(Links: vleesmagazine.nl, knurps.nl)

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September 27, 2008

Record breaking cooking class

Filed under: Dutch first,Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 10:20 am

TV chef Pierre Wind broke a world record last Thursday by teaching somewhere between 382 and 388 people how to make an non-fried egg roll (the numbers vary depending on the source). Among the participants were the Minister of Agriculture, Gerda Verburg, and truckloads of cooking school students. The previous record, 357 participants, was held by competing Dutch TV chef Cas Spijkers. The record attempt was part of De Week van de Smaak (Taste Week, which ends tomorrow).

(Link: Via Misset Horeca (Dutch). Photo of an unrelated Berlin cooking class kitchen by Jana Gumprecht, some rights reserved)

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September 8, 2008

Buying Dutch products is an illusion

Filed under: Food & Drink,General by Orangemaster @ 9:57 am
Douwe Egberts

One out of every three Dutch person prefers Dutch supermarket products over foreign ones. But can they really tell the difference? “Absolutely!”, 34% of respondents answered. Only 2% of respondents preferred foreign brand products in their shopping carts. The other 64% did not care where their products came from. So what’s up with the nationalism at the supermarket? Alexandra Blikman of the firm Deloitte explains (and debunks):

“In a previous survey about Dutch suppliers, many of them feel that there is a market for typical Dutch brand articles. We were surprised of that result and decided to check if that was in fact true. And it is.”

One question remains: what is a Dutch brand article? Douwe Egberts has been owned by the America’s Sara Lee for some 30 years. The typically Dutch Verkade biscuits and chocolate bars are owned by Britain’s United Biscuits, while Iglo was bought by Britain’s Permira. De Ruijter and Venz sprinkles are owned by America’s Heinz.

If you want to buy ‘Dutch goods’ you should buy Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Dove soap and Sourcy water. At first glance, the first one is from the US originally, the second probably the same and the last one from Belgium. Or just eat vegetables from greenhouses and you’ll be as Dutch as it gets.

People have no clue what they are buying, but do like Dutch looking or sounding goods. If you slap a Dutch flag or some stratigically placed orange banner on your product you may sell more.

(Link: z24.nl, photo: en.wikipedia.org)

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September 3, 2008

Creating false food memories to lose weight

Filed under: Food & Drink,Science by Orangemaster @ 9:09 am
Poutine

Convincing someone of a false memory could change their long-term eating patterns. It could even be a way to fight obesity and help people who are overweight. Researchers from the Universiteit Maastricht have discovered that making simple suggestions to someone can change their eating patterns. For example, telling someone that they got sick as a child eating a certain type of food would put them off that food months later.

This picture features good old greasy poutine, typical French Canadian junk food I used to actually serve at one of my first jobs.

(Link: hbvl.be)

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September 2, 2008

McDonald’s denies “cheese crime” allegations

Filed under: Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 11:30 am

In an episode broadcast last week the children’s version of consumer watchdog show Keuringsdienst van Waarde reported that many fast-food chains use fake cheese for their meals, what the voice over calls “cheese crime”. The programme’s test centre revealed that the “cheese” of a McDonald’s Cheeseburger contains “30% non-cheese elements.” McDonald’s and New York Pizza responded quickly and denied the allegations. McDonald’s said that to the contrary, it was the TV show that was misleading, not the American snack food giant.

So-called cheese analogues are used to emulate cheese in a wide range of products, such as pizzas, cheese soufflés, hamburgers and so on. As one manufacturer put it: “[Cheese analogue] is to cheese what margarine is to butter.” And another: “A real analogue does not contain any cheese at all.”

Cheese-substitute is often mixed with cheese waste, so that you cannot tell from the obligatory ingredients list that there’s cheese-substitute in a product. The Consumentenbond, a consumer rights organisation, thinks that is irrelevant. It said that creating a false impression of what’s in your products is illegal too according to Dutch law.

The video is mostly in Dutch, but because a number of the larger cheese analogue producers are in the UK and the US, some of the most revealing quotes are in English (starting at 05:10).

See also:

Via Zibb.nl (Dutch).

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August 27, 2008

Cake fight

Filed under: Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 7:48 am

There’s war in pastry land. Bakers John and Petra Hartog have recently registered the name “skitaart” (ski cake) and are having their lawyers send threatening letters (Dutch) to other bakers who use the same name. A ski cake consists of a “vlaai” (pie) bottom, filled with yellow cream and cherries, and topped with powdered sugar foam. Baker Marco Lakerveld, a competitor from Wijk bij Duurstede, doesn’t worry about the Hartog’s trademark claims. He says he has managed to lay hands on a thirty year old baker’s magazine in which the name “skitaart” was already used.

Meanwhile baker Ruud van Oort, the inventor of the skitaart and the guy who sold his bakery to the Hartogs in 2007, is down in the dumps over this legal fight. He has been making his original for thirty years, but never worried about pie-racy (I so could not stop myself there—sorry!). Van Oort told Bakkerswereld (Baker’s World, Dutch): “This is so sad. I was always very proud that other bakers copied what I had created.”

You have to wonder why the Hartogs are so vehemently throwing away the reputation built by Van Oort. This cake could blow up in their faces in all kinds of interesting ways.

Via Boek 9 (Dutch). Photo by Inkswamp, some rights reserved.

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August 14, 2008

Deep-throating herring

Filed under: Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 9:53 am

Algemeen Dagblad published the five best and the five worst herring stands of the Netherlands of 2008. The only true way to eat a herring, as any Dutchman knows, is to take the critter by its tail, heave it high above your head, and then take a big bite. And no, it doesn’t have to look as gross as portrayed here by the newspaper’s anonymous photographer. Deep Throat meets La Grande Bouffe. Between dikes.

Via l-rs.org (Dutch).

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