Belgium

Ghent, the rock ‘n’ roll alternative to Bruges in Belgium

3rd August 2018 by Regula 15 Comments

Nearly everyone I know abroad who visited Belgium tells me they only went to Bruges… Such a shame! I usually exclaim because Ghent is just as beautiful! Don’t get me wrong, I love Bruges but Ghent is Bruges rock’n’roll sister, the badass of the family, full of subcultures, underground music scenes and home to ‘Vooruit’ one of the most incredible music halls located in an old socialist arts centre – the place where I saw my first show at 16. On top of that, Ghent has all Bruges has to offer architecture-wise minus the annoying hordes of tourists and unimaginative souvenirs shops selling lace from anywhere but Flanders.

Ghent is constantly reinventing itself, people are friendly and the atmosphere is relaxed. You can have a good glass of Belgian beer on nearly every street corner but the last few years exciting new places have been opening all over the town. Ghent has been reputed being the vegetarian capital of Europe and that is something I had to be told by a friend who is vegan and visited Ghent a few months ago.

Ghent has been our nearest town for the last 12 years and with our move a few months ago we hardly ever visited because life has just been to busy and we no longer live a 20 minute drive away. But I find I look at Ghent with different eyes now when we do manage to carve out some time to travel there. We no longer pop over for lunch at our favourite Italian (Trattoria Della Mamma), but venture further into the city to try other things, stay longer to have dessert or afternoon tea (Huset), or an ice cold glass of Belgian style.

If shopping is what you are after, Ghent has it all. You have your highstreet chains in de Veldstraat but if small independent shops is your thing – it sure is for me – you have an array of little shops dotted around town.…

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.

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Mussels with Belgian fries for Food Revolution day

17th May 2012 by Regula 27 Comments

Today we take a stand, for real food, for life and for family.
…

Food revolution is an organisation from Jamie Oliver.

As Jamie says in his article for the Huffington Post, “Food Revolution Day is an opportunity for everyone around the world to
do something. The Food Revolution and Food Revolution Day is about
empowering people through education or, frankly, just inspiring people
to be more street-wise about food, where it comes from and how it
affects their bodies. If you know how to cook you can save yourself
money, feel better and live longer, and the chances are, your kids will
follow suit. After all, we all kind of become our parents in the end.”

People tend to see Jamie as that cheeky guy from Essex, the naked chef. What a lot of folks don’t realize is the fact that he actually uses his ‘celebrity chef’ status to do good, to make a change. In 2005 he declared war to the unhealthy British school dinners, in 2010 he took the fight to Amerika. He has built kitchens all over Britain with his Ministry of Food, to learn people how to cook so they can teach others to do so as well. He is passionate about food and people’s relationship with food.

Today on 19 May, Food Revolution Day will happen in kitchens, homes and communities around the world.

In my case Food Revolution Day will start on my blog and the blogs of a few other lovely Ladies from all over the globe.
We are friends who have one big thing in common; our love for food – real food. So we found it very important to get involved. As we live in various places around the world and we couldn’t sadly be together for this day, we
are having a ‘virtual Potluck‘ dinner, this is where every guest brings a dish
she or he made to the table. We are
all preparing local sustainable food, in the hope to inspire others to
cook on this day. The dishes will be easy to cook and no processed food is allowed.We can’t be together today ladies, but we are closer together than some people will ever be. Have a wonderful Food Revolution Day!

Take a look at our delicious menu
…………………………………………………………………….

Nibbles by Karin from ‘Yum&More’ in Germany originally from the USA

Panzanella by Giulia from ‘Jul’s kitchen’ in Italy

Salad with local greens by Valeria from ‘My life love food’ in England originally from Italy

Mussels with real Belgian fries by Regula from ‘Foodwise’ in Belgium

Crespelle Verdi di Pesce by Emiko from ‘Emiko Davies’ in Australia

Vanilla honey rhubarb galette by Zita from ‘Zizi’s adventures’ in Hungary
Rhubarb Panna Cota by Sarka from ‘Cook your dream’, England-originally from Czech Republic

……………………………………………………………………………

I am preparing Moules et frites, Mussels with real Belgian fries.

Did you know mussels are an eco-friendly, sustainable seafood choice?
Like oysters and clams, mussels actually clean the water they’re grown in.
They have no impact on the water because they don’t require treatment against disease.
Mussels are also high in protein, zinc, vitamin C, Iron and omega-3 so they are a healthy food choice.It has been said for hundreds of years that mussels are in season in each month that has an ‘R’ in it, but this is an old tale that originated from a time when there was no cooled transport. The fishermen couldn’t get the mussels live and well to their destination.
Now the season runs from July until april for the ‘Zeeuwse’ mussels, so I was very lucky to get the last of the catch.
I live just a 15 minute drive from Zeeland, where the ‘Zeeuwse’ mussel happily lives and thrives in the protected waters from the River Schelde.We are going to bake the Belgian fries in the traditional way using ‘Beef tallow’ for frying. The real ‘Frit kot’ (chip shops) in Belgium still uses this Beef tallow -rendered beef fat- and swear by it because it is actually healthier than the vegetable oil that is been used in a lot of places these days.
Beef tallow is highly resistant
to rancidity and much more resistant to high temperatures than the
vegetable oil. To be safe to eat you can only use the vegetable oil once
but due to its higher price a lot of places use it twice or more,
leaving the customer often with stomach and intestinal pains. Also in flavour, the vegetable oil can’t compete with the beef tallow and as for sustainability… beef tallow also wins because its a by-product!
So if you want to start eating from nose to tail, beef tallow is the way to go. Just ask your local butcher and I’m sure he’ll be happy to oblige.

Zeeland

What do you need (serves 1 as a main and 6 as a starter)

• 1 kg live mussels

• 1 leek

• 2 stalks of cellery

• 1 small carrot

• 1 medium sized onion

• 25 cl water (or white wine)
• Seasalt and pepperFor the Real Belgian Fries
• 1 kg potatoes, you need a good starchy potato like Bintjes and Berkeley Bowl
• ‘beef tallow’ for frying, very important to get the real ‘frites’ (ask your butcherfor it)

• SeasaltMethod

The mussels
Select mussels that are tightly closed or that close when you tap them.
Discard the ones with cracked shells.
Use you nose, they should smell clean and salty, like the sea.
Rinse them under running water and don’t be too gentle because you want all the sand to come out.
Remove the beards, clean the shells if you need to.
Cut your vegetables in small dices and put aside.

The ‘frites’You have 3 kinds of frites:
the ‘allumettes‘ (0,5cm), the ‘mignonettes‘ (0,7cm) and the ‘pont-neuf‘ (1,5-2cm).
The ‘mignonettes’ is the one you want for this dish and also the most common.We have to bake the fries twice to get the result we want.
If you are using a Frying pan, add the beef tallow to the fryer and set your thermometer to 150°. It’s very important to use the right temperature!Peel you potatoes and rinse them.
Cut you potatoes into +/- 0,7 cm discs, don’t be too fussy about the size but do try to keep them all around the same size so they bake evenly.
Then cut the discs into fries.
Dry the fries with a tea towel.If you fat has reached the right temperature, add the fries and fry slightly golden in small batches. (see image below)
Dry them with kitchen paper and leave them on a tray to cool.
You can leave them until the rest of your food is ready and fry them a second time just before serving.

Now back to the mussels
Add the diced vegetables to a large pot to hold all the mussels, sweat the vegetables and add the water. Leave it to boil a few minutes.

Now back to the fries
Get the temperature of the fat to 190°.
Fry the fries in small batches until a beautiful golden color.

Before you put the last batch of fries in in the fat, add the mussels to the boiling water, add the lid and shake.
Leave for 5 minutes and shake.
The mussels should have opened now.
Put the lid back on. Turn of the fire.

Fry the last batch of fries.

Get some mayonnaise and add 1 teaspoon of mustard and 1 teaspoon of cooking water from the mussels. This is you mussel sauce, traditionally you should also add a bit of vinegar to the sauce.

When the fries are ready, sprinkle them with seasalt and serve with the mussels!

Delicious with a pint of real ale or a nice glass of dry white wine!

*Waste none: the leftover vegetables and cooking water of the mussels makes a delicous tomato soup, just add a tin of skinned tomatoes and a tin of tomato puree and bring to the boil. Puree the soup and bring to the boil again.

Enjoy!

Ah Belgian pride in a cone

Want to know how can you contribute to Food Revolution? Fabulous!

First of all: start cooking! Home cooked meals are the best!

Find out about you local food by asking your butcher, fish monger and vegetable man what’s local and in season.

Try and find out if you can buy meat and or vegetables straight from a farm so you reduce your carbon footprint but also by creating awareness about where your food comes from. I will probably mean ordering your meat, veggies and dairy in advance sometimes but this will reduce the trips you usually make to the superstore.
More time to cook!
By buying straight from the producer you reduce the amount of food that is thrown in the garbage and you also have a hand in the fact that less animals will be killed in vain.
I strongly feel that no animal should be slaughtered if it’s not going to be eaten nose to tail.
Not just for animal welfare but also for environmental reasons.
The carbon footprint of livestock is huge and if we keep up the current way of life, we will one day need to go vegetarian because the earth is just not producing enough food to feed the whole planet.
Eat less meat, but good quality meat from local farms instead of intensively reared meat.
Happy animals produce better and healthier meat!

Would you like to donate to Food Revolution Day? DONATE

The complete picture, mussels, fries and beer

Please feel free to leave a comment, I love reading them!

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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