Belgian cuisine
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Belgium has been called a nation of gourmands rather than gourmets: a country, in other words, where "big cuisine" comes before "fine cuisine". It has been said that Belgium serves food of French quality in German quantities.[1]
Frieten or frites
Deep-fried chipped potatoes ("fries" in American English; "chips" in British English) are a very popular food item – and one which the Belgians often claim to have invented.
The Belgian journalist Jo Gérard recounts that potatoes were fried in 1680 in the Spanish Netherlands, in the area of "the Meuse valley between Dinant and Liège, Belgium. The poor inhabitants of this region allegedly had the custom of accompanying their meals with small fried fish, but when the river was frozen and they were unable to fish, they cut potatoes lengthwise and fried them in oil to accompany their meals."[2][3]
They are called frieten in Dutch and frites in French. However, unlike the 6–10 mm thick "French fries" (known as pommes allumettes (French: matchstick potatoes) in Belgium) which are normally served in American fast-food restaurants, Belgian fries are more substantial (12–15 mm thick, akin to those served with Fish and Chips in the UK) and are typically fried in animal fat. One of the best places to enjoy them is at one of the often temporary or mobile establishments known in French as a friterie, in Dutch as a frituur or, more informally, a frietkot. These are typically to be found strategically placed in town squares or alongside busy highways, and also offer a variety of typically Belgian prepared meats, including frikandel.
Sauces
Friteries and other fast-food establishments tend to offer a number of different sauces for the fries and meats. In addition to ketchup and mayonnaise, it is common to offer many others, with popular options including aioli, américaine, andalouse, Brazil, cocktail sauce, curry ketchup, piccalilli, samouraï sauce or tartar sauce.[4] These sauces are generally also available in supermarkets.
Occasionally more exotic (or traditional) sauces are offered by friteries for use on fries, including hollandaise sauce, sauce provençale, Béarnaise sauce or even a heavy carbonade flamande stew.
Beer
Another Belgian speciality is beer.[1] For a comparatively small country, Belgium produces a very large number of beers in a range of different styles – in fact, it has more distinct types of beer per head than anywhere else in the world. Almost every style of beer has its own particular, uniquely shaped glass or other drinking-vessel.
A number of traditional Belgian dishes use beer as an ingredient. One is Carbonade (French: the Flemish term is stoofvlees or stoverij), a stew of beef cooked in beer, similar to Boeuf bourguignon. The beer used is typically the regional speciality — lambic in Brussels, De Koninck in Antwerp, and so on — so that the taste of the dish varies. Another is rabbit in gueuze. In't Spinnekopke, Brussels, and Den Dyver, Bruges are famed for their beer cookery.
The varied nature of Belgian beers makes it possible to match them against each course of a meal, for instance:
- Wheat beer with seafood or fish.
- Blonde beers or tripel with chicken or white meat
- Dubbel or other dark beers with dark meat
- Fruit lambics with dessert
Chocolate
Belgium is commonly known for their chocolate. Belgian chocolate is considered to be the gourmet standard by which all other chocolate confections are measured. Even the Swiss, known for their own high quality chocolate, imported the basic recipe from French and Belgian chocolatiers. What makes Belgian chocolate unique is the quality of ingredients and an almost adherence to Old World manufacturing techniques. Even in today's world of automation and mass production, most Belgian chocolate is still made by hand in small shops using original equipment. In fact, these small chocolate outlets are a popular draw for tourists visiting Belgium today.
Seafood pralines are popular with tourists and are sold all over Belgium. Chocolaterie Guylian for instance, makes the pralines according to the recipe from the company’s founding father Guy Foubert who created it in the Sixties. Today the praliné is still made to this same secret recipe, in the age-old traditional manner. This is a clear example that is typical for Belgian Chocolates.
Typical dishes
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- Moules-frites or Mosselen-friet: mussels and chips.
- Konijn in geuze/lapin à la gueuze: rabbit in geuze, which is a spontaneously fermented, sour beer from the area around Brussels.
- Stoemp: potato mashed with other vegetables, often served with sausages.
- Salade Liégeoise / Luikse salade: a salad with green beans, pieces of bacon, onions and vinegar, associated with Liège.
- Vlaamse stoofkarbonaden: a Flemish beef stew, similar to the French Beef Bourguignon, but made with beer instead of red wine.
- Waterzooi: a rich stew/soup of chicken (or sometimes fish), vegetables, cream and eggs, associated with Ghent.
- Paling in 't groen/anguilles au vert: Eel in a green sauce of mixed herbs.
- Gegratineerd witloof/chicons au gratin: a gratin of chicory in béchamel sauce with cheese.
- Boterhammen/Tartines: Slices of rustic bread and an uncovered spread, often pâté or soft cheese, served on a board and eaten with knife and fork. A typical variety is a slice of bread with quark and sliced radishes, typically accompanied by a glass of gueuze.
- Tomate-crevette / tomaat-garnaal: a snack or starter of grey shrimp in mayonnaise stuffed into a hollowed-out raw tomato
- Pêches au thon / perziken met tonijn: halved canned or fresh peaches stuffed with a mix of tuna and mayonnaise, i.e. tuna salad
- Pensen or Boudins: a type of sausage in which the meat (or blood) content is mixed with fine breadcrumbs. Often eaten with potatoes and apple sauce, sometimes eaten raw or barbequeued.
- The Ardennes is notable for Charcuterie, or cold meat products, particularly smoked ham (Jambon d'Ardenne) and paté, which may be made of game such as wild boar.
- Waffles, sometimes eaten as a street snack. There are two main styles, Brussels and Liège.
- Chocolate, particularly pralines (filled chocolates): see also among others Leonidas, Neuhaus, Godiva.
- Kip met frieten en appelmoes (chicken, french fries and apple sauce)
See also
- Belgian beer
- Guylian
- Chicory
- Pommes frites
- Friterie
- Mussels
- Pierre Wynants - chef
- Stoemp
- Waffle
- Waterzooi
- Chocolatier Neuhaus
- Leonidas Chocolatier
References
- ^ a b Michael Jackson's Great Beers of Belgium, Michael Jackson, ISBN 0-7624-0403-5
- ^ J. Gérard, Curiosités de la table dans les Pays-Bas Belgiques, s.l., 1781.
- ^ Ilegems, Paul (1993) [1993]. De Frietkotcultuur (in Dutch). Loempia. ISBN 90-6771-325-2.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link) - ^ Template:Fr icon "La Frite se mange-t-elle à toutes les sauces?". Frites.be. 2011. Retrieved April 20, 2011.
