More Favorite Foods

Italy is known for its pasta, Germany for its stellar bread and cakes, Belgium for its chocolates. The Dutch have pancakes which they eat for dinner instead of breakfast and the most amazing friend fish around. Oh, and also: cheese. The thickness of the Dutch pancake falls somewhere between a puffy American pancake and a French crepe--more like a crepe. And they can be made with a seemingly infinite variety of toppings. The most popular topping is apples with raisins or a pancake with Dutch cheese cooked into the top. This brings me to another favorite food here: Cheese. Even counting the money conversion, you can buy dairy products like milk, yogurt and cheese, cheaper in Holland than in America. When an American friend visited me recently, we went to the market every few days and sampled as much cheese as we could. We probably consumed 15 varieties of hard cheese while she was here.

Pancakes for dinner

(Eaten with stroop, or syrup and powdered sugar, toppings: bananas, and apples cooked into the batter)

toppings: bacon and cheese

Rounds of cheese:

Kibbeling (fried fish):