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This new addition of EAT comes to you from Amsterdam, Netherlands, my new home. Exactly a month ago, my husband Mike and I moved from Washington, DC to Amsterdam. So far, this first month moving to a foreign country has been punctuated with culture shock and stressful panic attack moments—most of which have occurred in the grocery store when I realized the ingredient lists were all in Dutch and I could no longer read nutrition labels in the same way I did back in America. (There was nothing that I liked more than to read nutrition labels.) There have also been limited cultural experiences this month and in lieu of them have been ton of official administrative matters—bank accounts, social security numbers, visa registration, apartment hunting & furnishing, etc. After getting all the logistical stuff almost over with, we are finally beginning to enjoy ourselves as official Dutch citizens. This means trying more food options such as the many Surinamese, Chinese-Indonesian, South African and Turkish “eetcafes” in our neighborhood of De Pijp, which is in the “Oud Zuid” (Old South). We are very fortunate to be living in a neighborhood that is far enough away from the center or other touristy things such as the Heineken Brewery (the closets tourist attraction to us) to feel like its own little village of parents riding their happy children around on bikes while all singing songs and eating cookies. Our neighborhood is a short bike ride to anywhere in the city, nothing is further than a 10-20 minute bike ride away, a 20 minute bike ride being long for Amsterdam since overall the city is so compact.
Food-wise, this first month has featured many of what I like to call, “hodge-podge” dinners, where we throw what random things we have on hand together to make meals that may not go together, but are nutritious and filling. The first week was a lot of this since we were staying at a temporary place and didn’t want to over-shop. It has also been difficult after moving to our own apartment, since we were used to having at least a base of spices, grains, flour, or even salt and pepper! Basically, items that are in a kitchen pantry that one never thinks twice about—we had nothing! We didn’t have pepper for the first week since we never got around to buying it. The only grain we had was couscous and the closest thing we had to a condiment was peanut butter. Our kitchen was a very sad and empty affair with baren counter tops and cabinets. We are slowly but surely changing all this and now have brown rice, whole wheat flour, honey, jam, butter, mustard, curry powder, cinnamon, and of course, salt and pepper. Clearly, there is still room to expand.
Although we have not gone out to eat very much in this first month for actual meals, we have eaten many baked goods and sampled different breads. Unlike in Washington, DC, where a good bakery was as hard to find as a non-Starbucks cup of coffee, bakeries are on every corner of the street and bread is a huge part of the culture here in Amsterdam. Bread is so hard to avoid. The Dutch eat more bread and cheese in a day than I usually eat in a week! They have bread for breakfast, lunch, and as a side for dinner. A typical Dutch breakfast is slices of “breakfast bread” which is a sweet cake-like bread seasoned with ginger and nutmeg then spread with butter and sprinkles or jam. (Mike has been indulging in this breakfast bread for weeks now, while I am staying strong to my “raw” breakfast of a banana, apple, flax, and soymilk.) For lunch, the sweet breakfast spreads are replaced with slices of cheese or a croquet or egg mashed onto bread. Dinner is usually as simple meat or fish with a side of vegetables and bread.
We have had so many breads and dessert items in the past month that I am now undergoing a much-needed yeast-free “detox” diet, which can be seen in the last few meals featured in this series. (The cauliflower and tomato stew, pumpkin and apple soup, and abundance of side salads instead of bread, for example.) This diet consists of eating a lot of vegetables, nuts, legumes, and good protein like eggs. Since I do not eat meat, the diet is harder because tofu can only be consumed in moderation. I am only on day 4 of this “detox” and have had many bread cravings. It does not help that every time I go out the door, I pass by at least 10 bakeries all with fresh loaves displayed in the window. It also does not help that it is much less expensive to eat a bread heavy diet than a vegetable heavy one, which I think is problematic and unfortunately a universal fact. Not only are vegetables more expensive, it takes a greater quantity of them to fill one’s stomach, whereas gloriously glutonous bread is a quick filler and as cheap as 0.49euro per loaf. It also seems to be more culturally acceptable to eat a sandwich loaded with bread and cheese for lunch than it is to eat a salad. There is no Sweet Green or Chop’t equivalents here. There are many Cosi, minus the salads, equivalents here. For the next couple of weeks, I’ll just continue to eat my vegetable stews and worry about the cost-of-living and not-normal cultural practices later. Next installment I will offer more insight on the Dutch food-culture, or lack thereof.
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