WHERE DUTCHMEN LIVE

Today was a day for overdoing it. Chinese food, Chinese snack, plate of Mexican nummies. That last courtesy of my landlady who brought up a huge amount of food, what with being a Cantonese American and consequently worried that there might be starvation, the counter and opposite of which is excess. My apartment mate does exactly the same thing.
It's ... a deeply rooted cultural characteristic.

Which, in a way, explains why I took a pound of daun sawi hidjau, a jar of tausi djiang, and a bak tsang over to the Indonesian Chinese lady in the downstairs front apartment. If she doesn't cook all the daun sawi no biggie, and I'm sure she will enjoy the bak tsang.
Who doesn't like bak tsang?

The Chinese food was lunch at a chachanteng, the snack was tea time at a bakery.


And all of this prompts the question what is necessary for civilized Dutch American life in the United States. Totally ignoring the settlements in the Midwest, because those were simple people, religious conservatives, and the near-Nazi element which couldn't hack it in post-war society, warmly welcomed by like-minded bigots and donkey-holes already here.

Basically, you need ketjap manis (or at least soy sauce), chilipaste, shrimp paste, fish sauce, ground coriander, turmeric, nutmeg or mace, dried shrimp, good mustard, real cheese, rice, rice noodles and wheat noodles, and fresh honest bread. Plus a variety of vegetables, and a decent butcher shop. Galangal and lemon grass would be nice. But aren't essential.

Much of all that can be found in any East Asian neighborhood ("Chinatown"), and the rest requires a sophisticated cosmopolitan community.

None of which exist in the Midwest.


Recipes for Dutch junkfood (frikandel and kroket) can be found on the internet, and if there is an East Asian neigborhood there are undoubtedly restaurants where something approximating Dutch Indonesian dishes may be had.


Flavour increases the further you go from Iowa.


Conversely, if you love ranch dressing, and cottage cheese, then the Midwest is your promised land, and you should stay there.



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