Belgium

Buns for Saint Hubert: Mastellen from Ghent

9th August 2018 by Regula 4 Comments

The city of Ghent ’s most famous bake is called ‘Mastel’ and it is a soft bun flavoured with cinnamon shaped into a round with a dimple in the middle made by pressing down four fingers in the dough. The name Mastel comes from ‘masteluin’ a bread mixture made with wheat and rye flour, it was an old practice to grow the two grains mixed on one single field to improve yield. Since medieval times the bun was consecrated by a priest and eaten as a preventative against hydrophobia or rabies on the feast of St Hubert on 3 november. Today the bun is often blessed on the 3rd of november but no one really believes it will protect them from hydrophobia or rage.

Mastellen are also sold dried to use for making a pudding called ‘Aalsterse Vlaai’ and the dried out bun was also often soaked in buttermilk to eat as a gruel. A custom that is in decline is that of the ‘ironed mastel’ where a mastel bun is sliced in two and spread with butter and a generous topping of brown sugar. The bun is then crushed under the weight and heat of an old fashioned heavy cast iron well eh – iron. The kind that used to be kept on the stove. The result is a crisp biscuit that resembles a Lackman waffle. Truly delicious. This ironing of the mastel is popular on the first weekend of august in the Ghent area called Patershol during the Patershol feasts, a jolly folk festival in one of Ghent’s most culturally diverse area, it is therefore also called Coté Culture. (Patersholfeesten are his weekend if you’re in the area! Also check previous post on where to go and eat in Ghent – I will be adding to this post over time.)

The custom of eating consecrated bread on St Huberts day comes from the story that the saint cured a man of rabies by giving him bread to eat. St Hubert was the Bishop of Liege and the patron saint of hunters, on the 3rd of november an event takes place in Liege where the hunting hounds, masters and staff are blessed by a priest. This date also marks the start of the hunting season….

Galette Des Rois and other food celebrations

6th January 2017 by Regula 7 Comments

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas if you celebrated it, and I wish you a smashing new year! There are lots of exciting things to come of which I will tell you more very soon but until then…

Since in the previous years I told you about English Epiphany or Twelfth Day celebrations, I thought I’d share the tradition of my side of the English channel with you today.
Like the Twelfth cake of which I wrote two years ago (see the post here), in my region we also have a cake, or tart with a hidden bean, coin or trinket.

It is called a ‘Three Kings Tart’ or ‘Driekoningentaart’, a puff pastry pie filled with the most satisfying almond filling which is when made well – addictive. If you find the bean or trinket in your piece of tart you are king for the day and the crown is all yours. To my regret I never found a bean in my piece of tart until two years ago. Oh the disappointment when I was a little girl, the frustration that it was always one of the adults who got the crown! I mean, they should have hidden it in my piece, shouldn’t they?? Traditionally the children would go out to sing from door to door for sweets and money, dressed up like the three kings.

We sadly haven’t got a traditional drink like the Lambswool (see that post here) which comes with the beautiful tradition of ‘wassailing’ which means to feast and run around the orchards to chase away evil spirits and wake up the trees.

I can’t tell you how much I adore this tart and the sight of bakery shop windows filled with ‘Galette Des Rois’ all topped with a festive golden paper crown. It reminds me of the stories I read about children gathering outside the bakery’s shop window to see the magnificent Twelfth Cakes over a century ago. The seasonal bakes that appear in bakeries always make my heart skip a beat. I walk passed Antwerp’s oldest bakery just to see the window display: the large speculoos figurines around Saint Nickolas, the chocolate eggs around Easter, the prune tarts when it’s Ash Wednesday and these terrific ‘Three Kings Tarts’ which the French and our French speaking Belgians call ‘Galette Des Rois’. In France the tarts are also known as Pithiviers, named after the town in the Loiret in the south of Paris, where they allegedly originated from….

My Books: Belgian Café Culture

20th October 2016 by Regula 29 Comments

UPDATE 2021 – Belgian Café Culture is getting a 5 year anniversary edition with a new cover! I am so very pleased! Publication date in early November!

A week after the launch of Pride And Pudding, exactly one year ago, I started working on a new book, a passion project…

This book ‘Belgian Café Culture / Authentieke Belgische Cafés (in English and Dutch) is a plea to carefully handle the fragile café heritage of Belgium. For too long have we taken these little cafés for granted. Not enough have we stopped to think about their history and their relevance in our culture. They are part of our social and cultural patrimony in Belgium. When I walk the streets, everywhere I look I see forgotten and lost cafés.

When I read in the papers that a much-loved café was going to close down I went to visit it, to talk to the people there who were about to lose their local. I was probably one of the last to document it. Nothing could be done; the owners of the building wanted to renovate the café and there is wind of a more hipster implementation. For this reason alone a lot of authentic cafés have had to go.

Although this heritage has always been staring me in the face, I only realised how fragile it is, and how important it is to preserve it, after taking a Belgian beer sommelier course which involved a lot of homework visiting cafés. The news of the closure of café Den Akker gave me the drive to do something about it in the only way I know how: by writing this book and documenting the importance of it.

…

Traditional lowland gingerbread: kruidnoten

4th December 2011 by Regula 13 Comments

The feast of ‘Sinterklaas’ is on December 6

‘Sinterklaas’ is a traditional Winter holiday figure still celebrated today in Belgium and the Netherlands and other parts of Europe.

Saint Nickolas is an elderly man wit a long full white beard. He carries a big book that tells whether each child has been good or naughty in the past year. He traditionally rides a white gray and delivers the gifts to the children by riding his horse over the rooftops assisted by his helper ‘Zwarte Piet’ (black Pete) who’s face is blackened from the soot of the chimneys.

Parallels have been drawn between the legend of ‘Sinterklaas’ and the figure of Odin, an important god to the Germanic people and worshiped in North and Western Europe prior to Christianization. He was accompanied by black ravens, Huginn and Muninn, who symbolised the night – Odin himself was the embodiment of light.

Other European countries see their Sinterklaas accompanied by a black demon with a long red tongue, his name: Krampus. Naughty children would be punished by Krampus, just as Zwarte piet in Belgium and the Netherlands would stick the naughty children in their large hessian sacks and abduct them. Fear is always a part of ancient traditions, though in recent years the scary part has been completely erased in my area, focussing on not getting any presents if you’ve been bad, rather than being abducted in a sack by the blackened Zwarte Piet. There’s also been a lot of controversy surrounding the recent version of our black demon. At some point in the Netherlands, Zwarte Piet grew black curls to accompany his blackened face, the blackness now completely covering the whole body with black gloves and stockings to complete the look of an African lackey. The story had changed from that of the ancient natural religions of night and day, good and evil, to a story that Sinterklaas freed slaves in Spain who then pledged their allegiance to him out of gratitude. The image of Zwarte Piet was a happy one, he was always depicted with a broad smile, but behind that smile a lot of negative thoughts appeared and in the last decade it’s been frowned upon to dress Zwarte Piet with black curls and lackey clothes – and rightly so. Traditions change all the time, and there is no definite tradition of Sinterklaas, so this change from Zwarte Piet to Roetpiet – or Black Pete to Pete Soot is a good evolution of the custom.

For children it’s never about politics, but all about gifts and sweets. It is customary to put one shoe in front of the fireplace on the 5th of december. The evening is called ‘Sinterklaasavond’ or ‘Pakjesavond’ (boxing evening). Carrots, turnips or apples are put in the shoe as a treat for ‘Sinterklaas’ horse. Sometimes a bottle of beer would be left for Zwarte Piet. The next morning the carrot would be gone, the beer bottle empty and the children may find candy or a small present in their shoes.

When I was a child I used to go and choose the best looking and largest carrot and turnip at the market. The next morning, there were chunks bitten out of the carrot and turnip and the beer bottle was empty. How magical!

We all knew there was no ‘father christmas’, ‘Santa’ or ‘Santaklaus’ but we were firm believers of ‘Sinterklaas’. I remember the disappointment I felt when I found out ‘Sinterklaas’ didn’t exist. I was in bed, trying to stay awake so I could see ‘Zwarte Piet’ as he came down our chimney. I didn’t see him, I heard my parents whispering about my present and assembling the dolls house I’d asked for. The disillusion was gigantic and I remained shocked for days. I didn’t tell my parents “I knew” until the next year when they told me themselves, I desperately wanted to hang on – I wanted to believe.

In Belgium they say finding out that ‘Sinterklaas’ doesn’t exist is the first disappointment you have in life. After that, you are a big girl or boy.

Typical ‘Sinterklaas’ treats traditionally include: mandarins, oranges, kruidnoten, pepernoten, chocolate letters (the first letter of the child’s name), speculaas, chocolate coins, marzipan figures and fruit and a figurine of ‘Sinterklaas’ made of chocolate.

The ‘kruidnoten’ (spiced nuts) are traditionally thrown into the corner of the room by the ‘ Zwarte Pieten’, some say this was to warn of evil spirits.

These little round cookies date back to the Middle Ages due to the arrival of exotic spices such as pepper. Pepper was thought to possess aphrodisiacal powers and was therefore used to bake fertility cookies. These were thrown at newly weds on their wedding day alongside traditional fertility symbols like rice and flowers.

This throwing of fertility symbols had also been part of an old pagan sowing feast that was celebrated at the beginning of December. The throwing resembled the farmer that sows his fields and it was meant to invoke good spirits.

Under the influence of the Catholic Church the sowing feast had slowly been replaced in the 16th century by the ‘Saint Nicholas feast’. But traces of the pagan tradition survived by throwing the then fashionable ‘pepernoten'(similar to kruidnoten) around.

So this is my recipe for the little ‘kruidnoten’, if you need to warn of evil spirits or invoke good ones, you better get started.

What do you need

250 g rye flour

1 tsp of baking powder

125 g dark brown sugar

100 g soft butter

3 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon ‘speculaas spice mix’ (see below)

a pinch of sea salt

For the speculaas spice mix:

6 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground clove

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

1 teaspoon aniseed

Method

Line a tray with greaseproof paper and preheat your oven to 160° C

Mix all the ingredients together and knead briefly to combine well.

Shape little balls, the size of a nutmeg and place on the prepped tray, leaving space for them to expand.

Bake them in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes.

Optional: after they are baked, you can dip these little biscuits into chocolate. I feel dark chocolate works best with the taste of the spices.
Store in an airtight container to keep the biscuits crunchy.

Don’t forget to put your shoe by the fireplace tonight…

I gave these cookies to my co-workers

Belgium

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