The boss is heading to the Netherlands for a week. No, I have not advised him or his wife on what to do, eat, see, or experience. He already knows about Hajenius (the world's best cigar store), and I'm fairly certain that neither books at Atheneum nor coffee served by apathetic waitstaff at the Cafe Luxembourg are anywhere on his bucket list.
He'll probably go to a museum or two, and walk around Amsterdam enjoying the quaintness. And have a drink in a cafe of an evening.
I am curious what his impressions of a country where I spent sixteen years (age two till eighteen) will be.
The food may startle him.
Fried objects of uncertain provenance. Semi-raw fish, heavily smoked fish. Cheese. Fries with peanut sauce. Frikandel with the works (mayo, ketchup, sambal, onions). Pastries. Indonesian food.
Some of the Indonesian food is rather spicy (like 'rendang', for instance, if properly made), some of it is richly sauced (kalio and korma), and a lot of it combines a textural excitement with medium spiciness and an undertone of savoury-sour-sweet.
It reflects three plus centuries of the Dutch colonial enterprise on Java, and barely a century in Bali, on the Borneo coast, and slaughtering friends and allies in Sumatra.
There are consequently more influences from places like Semarang and Surabaya than anywhere else. Palm sugar, peanuts, fish paste, and tamarind, plus a wealth of sambals, of all different kinds.
Filtered through Dutch sensitivities.
Nothing says "party!" like shrimp chips. Because it tells you that someone has a deep-fryer. Which, in the Netherlands, makes them almost a god.
Peanut sauce can be used on absolutely everything.
When in doubt, add sambal.
And wash everything down with coffee or gin.
It's probably a jolly good thing that I have not advised them. Better that they discover peculiarities and interesting things there on their own, rather than feeling like they had to do something, secondhandedly re-living my trips, and thinking that I must have been a blinkered weirdo as a youngster.
It's the vacation of a life time.
Have fun.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Showing posts with label Amsterdam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amsterdam. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
IT'S WHERE YOUR HEAD IS AT
In the year that my father passed away I rediscovered Amsterdam. That is actually not quite correct; I had rediscovered it several times before. But when I went back to Holland to see my dad before he died, I had been gone for over a decade. It was a welcome homecoming.
Since then Amsterdam, more than the south (Brabant and Limburg) has represented another home. The area around Eindhoven has little left to offer, as everyone I knew there has either left this earth or left that place: there is no real reason to revisit the Kempen anymore.
But Amsterdam is always there.
Amsterdam is a personality, a city, a familiar atmosphere.
A place where the head is, and the heart must follow.
In my teenage years I 'rediscovered' the city nearly every year. Always I liked visiting the flower market first, followed by spending the entire rest of the day strolling through the city, browsing antique stores and curio shops, having coffee and snacks, drinking in the feel of the metropolis.
It's partly the trees.
The city is dense with them, they shade the streets and muffle the sounds.
That, more than anything else, makes the place other-wordly.
It's like being in a private universe.
Leaf-speckled patterns.
When I visited my father that last time, I dawdled for four hours in Amsterdam before taking the train to the south. I had not been around Dutch-speakers since the day I left twelve years before. Let me just drink in what it feels like.
I discovered that I was one of the very few Dutch-speakers in town. When I asked someone where a particular street was, he apologetically admitted that he too was visiting, and only spoke English.
Several other tourists, hearing me speak the local tongue, promptly asked me for directions.
I must have rather disappointed them. Sorry.
During the next several weeks I went back to Amsterdam a number of times.
As I have in the years since.
READ...
I am particularly fond of the area around the Spui Plein. There's the Atheneum bookstore on the corner of Spui Street, the Cafe Luxembourg with the desultory and undiplomatic waiters, Cafe Beiaard around the corner with a much warmer staff, as well as several other cafes nearby where one may read the livres purchased at the weekly book market held every Friday amidst the trees surrounding the square. Which, surely, is the major reason to come. The printed matter you will find represents all the languages of Europe, and several beyond - Amsterdam has been a trading city for eons, and this is where the fleets that fought the Spanish in Asia and South America came from; for over three centuries it was the centre of the spice trade.
In the immediate area of the Spui Plein are a number of antiquarian booksellers where treasures may be found, not very far away at all is Scheltema Holkema Vermeulen, which is another famous bookstore, and snacks as well as very nice formal meals can be had at various eateries and restaurants.
The streets are shaded by ancient growth, and it's a relatively short stroll to other squares.
Many tourists only known the Leidsche Plein. They shoot down the Leidsche Straat from the train station, and promptly swarm into the Bulldog to lose their minds on hashish. Thank heavens they never buy maps, stay on focus, and have no interest in anything else.
Their 15 watt presence would darken the mood elsewhere.
Such as areas merely half a block away along the various canals.
Leafy spots, curio shops, bookstores, and antiques.
Plus comfortable cafes and eateries.
The Rembrandt Plein by comparison sees hardly any outsiders, and I doubt that anywhere nearby sells spacecake to young Americans. There's an English pub there, but its clientele and mood are profoundly Dutch. Clean, bright, old-fashioned. If I remember correctly they even have the rugs on the tables in lieu of damask, as many traditional drinking establishments in the Netherlands do.
The Rembrandt Plein is tree-lined, there are many antique store in walking distance.
I recall it as perpetually sunny - just haven't been there on rainy days.
AND EAT!
While Dutch food has always been infinitely better than what is available across the channel, the most exciting dining is at Indonesian restaurants.
Indo food is a cuisine whose roots in Holland were planted centuries ago, when returnees from the tropics and newly available spices met head on. The exiles loved being home again, loathed the rediscovered Dutch climate, and longed for something exciting to eat. Over the next several generations, the use of strong flavourings and subtle additions gradually found a place, eateries were opened up that catered to the Indies-gasten, and substitutions for ingredients not yet available added a different signature to several dishes.
After the war the flood of returning colonials added vigour, and, as a welcome change from the scarcity of the German years, East Indies food took off like a rocket.
Nowadays you can hardly find a Dutch kitchen without a spectrum of spices, condiments, sauces, and hotpastes whose origin lies halfway around the world.
For many ex-Indies folks, this was the taste of home. They grew up eating it, and in fact had never been to the Netherlands till Sukarno expelled them.
Imagine......
A meat stew made dark with earthy kluwak nuts, next to something brilliant yellow, coconutty. Red red hotsauce with a touch of fermented fish in a little saucer - the condiment - as well as grilled lamb skewers, slightly charry, with a drizzle of thick dark sauce. A plate of blanched vegetables with some spicy peanut sauce. Shrimp stir-fried with chilipaste and kangkong.
Fish soup with tamarind, tomato, and fresh crunchy herbs. Little fried snackipoos, and a spicy vegetable coconut mixture. Raw veggies with a fiery dip. A bowl of crunchy stuff to add on top.
Rawon, gulai, sambal, sate kambing, petjil, sambal goreng udang, ikan singgang, emping, urap urap, lalap, serundeng (these are all things I still cook at home, btw).
Everything in small portions, as it is the variety that counts.
Followed by strong coffee, and a very thin slice of an incredibly rich and delicious cake, moist and aromatic: spekkoek ("bacon cake"), so named because of its appearance, being paperthin layers of brown and white batter alternating - one sweet with a faint faint hint of pandan, the other richly zapped up with cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and cardamom.
Delicious.
[Spekkoek is something that really needs to be made by an auntie. It just tastes better that way.
I rarely do it myself.]
Then past golden-glowing windows home to the hotel, along streets darkened further by leaves and trees, but retaining the warmth of day long past dusk.
Holland is a wet and fecund place. Green things thrive.
Because of all the trees, Amsterdam smells good.
But that might still be the aroma of spices.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Since then Amsterdam, more than the south (Brabant and Limburg) has represented another home. The area around Eindhoven has little left to offer, as everyone I knew there has either left this earth or left that place: there is no real reason to revisit the Kempen anymore.
But Amsterdam is always there.
Amsterdam is a personality, a city, a familiar atmosphere.
A place where the head is, and the heart must follow.
In my teenage years I 'rediscovered' the city nearly every year. Always I liked visiting the flower market first, followed by spending the entire rest of the day strolling through the city, browsing antique stores and curio shops, having coffee and snacks, drinking in the feel of the metropolis.
It's partly the trees.
The city is dense with them, they shade the streets and muffle the sounds.
That, more than anything else, makes the place other-wordly.
It's like being in a private universe.
Leaf-speckled patterns.
When I visited my father that last time, I dawdled for four hours in Amsterdam before taking the train to the south. I had not been around Dutch-speakers since the day I left twelve years before. Let me just drink in what it feels like.
I discovered that I was one of the very few Dutch-speakers in town. When I asked someone where a particular street was, he apologetically admitted that he too was visiting, and only spoke English.
Several other tourists, hearing me speak the local tongue, promptly asked me for directions.
I must have rather disappointed them. Sorry.
During the next several weeks I went back to Amsterdam a number of times.
As I have in the years since.
READ...
I am particularly fond of the area around the Spui Plein. There's the Atheneum bookstore on the corner of Spui Street, the Cafe Luxembourg with the desultory and undiplomatic waiters, Cafe Beiaard around the corner with a much warmer staff, as well as several other cafes nearby where one may read the livres purchased at the weekly book market held every Friday amidst the trees surrounding the square. Which, surely, is the major reason to come. The printed matter you will find represents all the languages of Europe, and several beyond - Amsterdam has been a trading city for eons, and this is where the fleets that fought the Spanish in Asia and South America came from; for over three centuries it was the centre of the spice trade.
In the immediate area of the Spui Plein are a number of antiquarian booksellers where treasures may be found, not very far away at all is Scheltema Holkema Vermeulen, which is another famous bookstore, and snacks as well as very nice formal meals can be had at various eateries and restaurants.
The streets are shaded by ancient growth, and it's a relatively short stroll to other squares.
Many tourists only known the Leidsche Plein. They shoot down the Leidsche Straat from the train station, and promptly swarm into the Bulldog to lose their minds on hashish. Thank heavens they never buy maps, stay on focus, and have no interest in anything else.
Their 15 watt presence would darken the mood elsewhere.
Such as areas merely half a block away along the various canals.
Leafy spots, curio shops, bookstores, and antiques.
Plus comfortable cafes and eateries.
The Rembrandt Plein by comparison sees hardly any outsiders, and I doubt that anywhere nearby sells spacecake to young Americans. There's an English pub there, but its clientele and mood are profoundly Dutch. Clean, bright, old-fashioned. If I remember correctly they even have the rugs on the tables in lieu of damask, as many traditional drinking establishments in the Netherlands do.
The Rembrandt Plein is tree-lined, there are many antique store in walking distance.
I recall it as perpetually sunny - just haven't been there on rainy days.
AND EAT!
While Dutch food has always been infinitely better than what is available across the channel, the most exciting dining is at Indonesian restaurants.
Indo food is a cuisine whose roots in Holland were planted centuries ago, when returnees from the tropics and newly available spices met head on. The exiles loved being home again, loathed the rediscovered Dutch climate, and longed for something exciting to eat. Over the next several generations, the use of strong flavourings and subtle additions gradually found a place, eateries were opened up that catered to the Indies-gasten, and substitutions for ingredients not yet available added a different signature to several dishes.
After the war the flood of returning colonials added vigour, and, as a welcome change from the scarcity of the German years, East Indies food took off like a rocket.
Nowadays you can hardly find a Dutch kitchen without a spectrum of spices, condiments, sauces, and hotpastes whose origin lies halfway around the world.
For many ex-Indies folks, this was the taste of home. They grew up eating it, and in fact had never been to the Netherlands till Sukarno expelled them.
Imagine......
A meat stew made dark with earthy kluwak nuts, next to something brilliant yellow, coconutty. Red red hotsauce with a touch of fermented fish in a little saucer - the condiment - as well as grilled lamb skewers, slightly charry, with a drizzle of thick dark sauce. A plate of blanched vegetables with some spicy peanut sauce. Shrimp stir-fried with chilipaste and kangkong.
Fish soup with tamarind, tomato, and fresh crunchy herbs. Little fried snackipoos, and a spicy vegetable coconut mixture. Raw veggies with a fiery dip. A bowl of crunchy stuff to add on top.
Rawon, gulai, sambal, sate kambing, petjil, sambal goreng udang, ikan singgang, emping, urap urap, lalap, serundeng (these are all things I still cook at home, btw).
Everything in small portions, as it is the variety that counts.
Followed by strong coffee, and a very thin slice of an incredibly rich and delicious cake, moist and aromatic: spekkoek ("bacon cake"), so named because of its appearance, being paperthin layers of brown and white batter alternating - one sweet with a faint faint hint of pandan, the other richly zapped up with cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and cardamom.
Delicious.
[Spekkoek is something that really needs to be made by an auntie. It just tastes better that way.
I rarely do it myself.]
Then past golden-glowing windows home to the hotel, along streets darkened further by leaves and trees, but retaining the warmth of day long past dusk.
Holland is a wet and fecund place. Green things thrive.
Because of all the trees, Amsterdam smells good.
But that might still be the aroma of spices.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
KINGDOM OF SHADOWS
There are several Indonesian shadow-puppets in the television room. Late at night they sometimes speak. Heroic Ardjuna, his wise brother Yudistira, the dwarf Semar, and others.
Ardjuna, the paragon of chivalry, sometimes looks at me in a way that seems to suggest that I could do better.
His older brother maintains that things are as they are, deal with it.
And Semar takes it all in stride, averring that we're all insane.
Semar must be Canadian. That would explain his dry sense of humour.
The one three dimensional character is a wayang golek doll I brought back from Amsterdam. Painted wood, noble features, thoughtful yet controlled expression.
Though the tale cycle he represents is far younger than the Mahabharatic world of the five Pandawa brothers, he is the oldest of the dolls. Even Semar, battered and world-weary, was born from the artisan's labours more recently. The flat dolls probably date no later than the fifties, but the refined minister of an Islamic kingdom originated many years before the war. There is a gentleness to his carved face that suggests that he has seen much, lamented the collapse of society in the great upheavals of the twentieth century, and survived tumult and discord.
Java in the twenties and thirties, the Japanese invasion, the long ocean voyage to the Netherlands when the Dutch left the Indies forever......
And, more recently, emigration to the United States.
Of all of them, he is the least displaced.
Wherever he is, he belongs.
The two krisses on the high shelf have been much calmer since he arrived over a decade ago.
Peaceful. No longer tumultuous.
Despite the dreamed conversations that take place, it is often quiet.
When the shadow puppets speak, they do so seemingly by silence.
And krisses, of course, have no words. Only emotions.
One could not expect otherwise from wavy steel.
All of these entities assuredly like the snow-pear incense I burn.
Partly to chase away the occasional mosquito.
Partly to hide my smoking at night.
They do not mind the reason.
The world is aromatic.
Sandjaya spoke to king Dritarastra, saying: "long ago, when we all lived in Ngastinapura, before those five and Draupadi departed......"
The story is lengthy, and involves whole histories that must be detailed, so that the final battle on the field of Kuru, though forever in the background, need not be mentioned.
Not yet.
There were five brothers, who went and lived in the forest.
In each era they live again. They still live.
At some point, probably this year, I will carve Gatotkatja with the pale green-blue visage and ferocious facial hair, the gallant son of Bima and Hidimbi. To my mind he is the most complex of the characters in the Indonesian telling of the tale. For reasons which the Sanskritist will understand, he has to be more three dimensional than other puppets.
Most especially his head.
It's all in the head.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Ardjuna, the paragon of chivalry, sometimes looks at me in a way that seems to suggest that I could do better.
His older brother maintains that things are as they are, deal with it.
And Semar takes it all in stride, averring that we're all insane.
Semar must be Canadian. That would explain his dry sense of humour.
The one three dimensional character is a wayang golek doll I brought back from Amsterdam. Painted wood, noble features, thoughtful yet controlled expression.
Though the tale cycle he represents is far younger than the Mahabharatic world of the five Pandawa brothers, he is the oldest of the dolls. Even Semar, battered and world-weary, was born from the artisan's labours more recently. The flat dolls probably date no later than the fifties, but the refined minister of an Islamic kingdom originated many years before the war. There is a gentleness to his carved face that suggests that he has seen much, lamented the collapse of society in the great upheavals of the twentieth century, and survived tumult and discord.
Java in the twenties and thirties, the Japanese invasion, the long ocean voyage to the Netherlands when the Dutch left the Indies forever......
And, more recently, emigration to the United States.
Of all of them, he is the least displaced.
Wherever he is, he belongs.
The two krisses on the high shelf have been much calmer since he arrived over a decade ago.
Peaceful. No longer tumultuous.
Despite the dreamed conversations that take place, it is often quiet.
When the shadow puppets speak, they do so seemingly by silence.
And krisses, of course, have no words. Only emotions.
One could not expect otherwise from wavy steel.
All of these entities assuredly like the snow-pear incense I burn.
Partly to chase away the occasional mosquito.
Partly to hide my smoking at night.
They do not mind the reason.
The world is aromatic.
Sandjaya spoke to king Dritarastra, saying: "long ago, when we all lived in Ngastinapura, before those five and Draupadi departed......"
The story is lengthy, and involves whole histories that must be detailed, so that the final battle on the field of Kuru, though forever in the background, need not be mentioned.
Not yet.
There were five brothers, who went and lived in the forest.
In each era they live again. They still live.
At some point, probably this year, I will carve Gatotkatja with the pale green-blue visage and ferocious facial hair, the gallant son of Bima and Hidimbi. To my mind he is the most complex of the characters in the Indonesian telling of the tale. For reasons which the Sanskritist will understand, he has to be more three dimensional than other puppets.
Most especially his head.
It's all in the head.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
IN A CITY BY THE WATER
Under a recent post about travelling to the Netherlands, someone left a comment which the more I think about it, the more it intrigues me.
"Sounds good, when are we going?"
That depends entirely on you.
If you are a personable young lady with taste, discernment, and a fondness for middle-aged pipe smokers, it could be really soon.
Especially if you're small, snarky, and dark-haired.
Amsterdam is a perfect place to get to know each other. And this time of year the flowers are coming into bloom.
It is really is lovely there in March and April.
AMSTERDAM
One of my favourite haunts in Mokum Alef (the nickname for Amsterdam) is the Atheneum Bookstore on the Spui square, as well as nearby places for coffee or food.
I used to enjoy the Cafe Luxembourg (across the street on the right hand side), but one incident persuaded me that better hale could be sought elsewhere.
I had happily breezed on in, pleased with recent purchases at the bookmarket that is held every Friday, and expecting to spend some time over coffee fondling my livres nouveau.
But the only member of the staff who appeared to be working at the time was far too busy talking with a companion to be bothered with something so trivial as serving customers.
After patiently waiting for ten minutes, I caught her I eye and nodded, indicating that maybe, possibly, in the fullness of time, a hot liquid might be desired. After her friend finally left, she came over to my table and snapped: "Zo! Heeft u niet gezien dat ik bezig ben met een andere klant?!?" ('so, did you not observe that I'm busy with someone else?').
The other wait persons in the vicinity were in no way inclined to do any work. They were far too animatedly yacking among themselves to inspire confidence in their ability to serve even an empty cup, let alone one filled with a refreshingly bitter hot beverage.
They might have flung it at me if pressed.
Without a word I turned around and left. Went to the Cafe Beiaard around the corner (address: Spui 30), where the staff is friendly, capable, and keenly tends to business.
The Cafe Luxembourg has prestige, and radiates tradition. But they hire snott-wads who merely pocket their salary (service included - bediening inklusief) and radiate disdain.
"Heeft u niet gezien dat ik bezig ben met een andere klant?"
Again, if you want a cup of coffee and a cookie in a pleasant hospitable place, do NOT go to the Luxembourg, but head around the corner.
Cafe Beiaard, Spui 30, Amsterdam.
Their coffee is much better.
Claesje Claes just off the square in the other direction has lovely smoked fresh-water eel from the Ysselmeer ('Zuider Zee'), by the way. Plus a wonderful seafood chowder built on a fundament of tomatoes. I sincerely hope that they are still around.
OTHER BOOKS
Not too far away from the Atheneum is another bookstore that should be visited, on the Koning's Plein ('King's Square').
Scheltema-Holkema-Vermeuelen. Corner of the Leidschegracht and the Heerengracht.
It is only two blocks from the Spui Plein ('Spew Square').
A slight detour will bring you to the flower market along the Singel, between the Koning's Plein and the Heilige Weg ('holy road'). On a rainy day the fragrances and colours are enchanting.
Near the university, you will find a passage through the buildings named the Oudemanhuis Poort ('Old Man House Gate'). Within its sanctuary a number of booksellers have stalled out their wares and you can spend an hour or two browsing, OR you can go out to the Kloveniers Burgwal and turn left, go down a bit to the small bookstore that specializes in poetry - yes, there is Dutch verse, and after more than six centuries of wide-spread literacy there is quite a lot which is stellar - and ponder rhymes.
A decade ago I purchased two volumes of sonnets by Jean-Pierre Rawie, a modern Dutch poet whose work I particularly like. I've met him, but other than sparkly eyes and a friendly sense of humour I do not recall much about him. Darkish hair, I think, spectacles, and average height.
But I may be confusing him with a version of myself.
Judging by what's available here in San Francisco at City Lights Bookstore, his writings must be harder to translate into English than the very meaningful stuff by Jules Deelder.
That is to say, Rawie is not available, Deelder is lauded.
In addition to Dutch literature, a vast selection of English-language books is available in Amsterdam. All the classics, though you may have quite a search for the Romantic Poets, plus modern English and American literature. A fair amount has also been put into into Dutch, especially Science-Fiction.
Some Dutch literature has been translated into English, though one should be wary of the ability of Dutchmen to do justice to the material in a foreign tongue - too often they're still thinking in Dutch. The results may be less than trumpet-worthy.
Whatever translations from modern Dutch the 'Beat' intellectuals in North Beach do should be utterly distrusted. Creatively using a dictionary, and interviewing the poet while wearing a beret, does NOT qualify.
ADDENDUM
Food: Eat Indonesian while you're there.
Kambing dengan ketjap (lamb in a soy sauce liquor), kambing bakar (similar to the previous), sayur lodeh (vegetables cooked soft in coconut milk), gulai buntjis (stringbeans in a mild curry), soto ayam (a luxurious chicken soup with vegetables and textural additions), sate kambing (grilled little lamb skewers), ikan bumbu bali (fish crusted with gingery earthy spices), nasi kuning (festive yellow rice), perkedel (small meat and potato fritters), kepiting bumbu lada (chili sauce crab), semur babi (stewed pork Indonesian-Chinese style), opor ayam (chicken poached in coconut milk), gudeg (jackfruit chunks cooked in coconut cream), daging lembu di guling (beef rolls in a sauce of coconut and tomato), sambal goreng udang (shrimp stirfried with chilipaste), ketoprak........
Lovely small spicy dishes by candlelight, semi private.
Also have the excellent Dutch herring, big buckets of mussels, Surinamese sandwiches from Warung Swietie just off the Albert Kuyp market. For fried snacky things, eat at FeBo.
Plus gasak fine dimsum in the area around the Binnen Bantammer Street.
What's a vacation without dimsum?
AFTER THOUGHT
Amsterdam is a wonderful place for just two people. There's something about a good walking city with lovely tree-lined streets and canals that stimulates lively impulses, and because this is not a place which is full of itself, it is far more conducive to interludes of carefree romance than other places. It just feels so comfortable being there.
Twixt 'gezellig' (cozy) and 'senang' (happy, contented).
Time goes by too fast, and before you know it you must depart.
But plan on going back again.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
"Sounds good, when are we going?"
That depends entirely on you.
If you are a personable young lady with taste, discernment, and a fondness for middle-aged pipe smokers, it could be really soon.
Especially if you're small, snarky, and dark-haired.
Amsterdam is a perfect place to get to know each other. And this time of year the flowers are coming into bloom.
It is really is lovely there in March and April.
AMSTERDAM
One of my favourite haunts in Mokum Alef (the nickname for Amsterdam) is the Atheneum Bookstore on the Spui square, as well as nearby places for coffee or food.
I used to enjoy the Cafe Luxembourg (across the street on the right hand side), but one incident persuaded me that better hale could be sought elsewhere.
I had happily breezed on in, pleased with recent purchases at the bookmarket that is held every Friday, and expecting to spend some time over coffee fondling my livres nouveau.
But the only member of the staff who appeared to be working at the time was far too busy talking with a companion to be bothered with something so trivial as serving customers.
After patiently waiting for ten minutes, I caught her I eye and nodded, indicating that maybe, possibly, in the fullness of time, a hot liquid might be desired. After her friend finally left, she came over to my table and snapped: "Zo! Heeft u niet gezien dat ik bezig ben met een andere klant?!?" ('so, did you not observe that I'm busy with someone else?').
The other wait persons in the vicinity were in no way inclined to do any work. They were far too animatedly yacking among themselves to inspire confidence in their ability to serve even an empty cup, let alone one filled with a refreshingly bitter hot beverage.
They might have flung it at me if pressed.
Without a word I turned around and left. Went to the Cafe Beiaard around the corner (address: Spui 30), where the staff is friendly, capable, and keenly tends to business.
The Cafe Luxembourg has prestige, and radiates tradition. But they hire snott-wads who merely pocket their salary (service included - bediening inklusief) and radiate disdain.
"Heeft u niet gezien dat ik bezig ben met een andere klant?"
Again, if you want a cup of coffee and a cookie in a pleasant hospitable place, do NOT go to the Luxembourg, but head around the corner.
Cafe Beiaard, Spui 30, Amsterdam.
Their coffee is much better.
Claesje Claes just off the square in the other direction has lovely smoked fresh-water eel from the Ysselmeer ('Zuider Zee'), by the way. Plus a wonderful seafood chowder built on a fundament of tomatoes. I sincerely hope that they are still around.
OTHER BOOKS
Not too far away from the Atheneum is another bookstore that should be visited, on the Koning's Plein ('King's Square').
Scheltema-Holkema-Vermeuelen. Corner of the Leidschegracht and the Heerengracht.
It is only two blocks from the Spui Plein ('Spew Square').
A slight detour will bring you to the flower market along the Singel, between the Koning's Plein and the Heilige Weg ('holy road'). On a rainy day the fragrances and colours are enchanting.
Near the university, you will find a passage through the buildings named the Oudemanhuis Poort ('Old Man House Gate'). Within its sanctuary a number of booksellers have stalled out their wares and you can spend an hour or two browsing, OR you can go out to the Kloveniers Burgwal and turn left, go down a bit to the small bookstore that specializes in poetry - yes, there is Dutch verse, and after more than six centuries of wide-spread literacy there is quite a lot which is stellar - and ponder rhymes.
A decade ago I purchased two volumes of sonnets by Jean-Pierre Rawie, a modern Dutch poet whose work I particularly like. I've met him, but other than sparkly eyes and a friendly sense of humour I do not recall much about him. Darkish hair, I think, spectacles, and average height.
But I may be confusing him with a version of myself.
Judging by what's available here in San Francisco at City Lights Bookstore, his writings must be harder to translate into English than the very meaningful stuff by Jules Deelder.
That is to say, Rawie is not available, Deelder is lauded.
In addition to Dutch literature, a vast selection of English-language books is available in Amsterdam. All the classics, though you may have quite a search for the Romantic Poets, plus modern English and American literature. A fair amount has also been put into into Dutch, especially Science-Fiction.
Some Dutch literature has been translated into English, though one should be wary of the ability of Dutchmen to do justice to the material in a foreign tongue - too often they're still thinking in Dutch. The results may be less than trumpet-worthy.
Whatever translations from modern Dutch the 'Beat' intellectuals in North Beach do should be utterly distrusted. Creatively using a dictionary, and interviewing the poet while wearing a beret, does NOT qualify.
ADDENDUM
Food: Eat Indonesian while you're there.
Kambing dengan ketjap (lamb in a soy sauce liquor), kambing bakar (similar to the previous), sayur lodeh (vegetables cooked soft in coconut milk), gulai buntjis (stringbeans in a mild curry), soto ayam (a luxurious chicken soup with vegetables and textural additions), sate kambing (grilled little lamb skewers), ikan bumbu bali (fish crusted with gingery earthy spices), nasi kuning (festive yellow rice), perkedel (small meat and potato fritters), kepiting bumbu lada (chili sauce crab), semur babi (stewed pork Indonesian-Chinese style), opor ayam (chicken poached in coconut milk), gudeg (jackfruit chunks cooked in coconut cream), daging lembu di guling (beef rolls in a sauce of coconut and tomato), sambal goreng udang (shrimp stirfried with chilipaste), ketoprak........
Lovely small spicy dishes by candlelight, semi private.
Also have the excellent Dutch herring, big buckets of mussels, Surinamese sandwiches from Warung Swietie just off the Albert Kuyp market. For fried snacky things, eat at FeBo.
Plus gasak fine dimsum in the area around the Binnen Bantammer Street.
What's a vacation without dimsum?
AFTER THOUGHT
Amsterdam is a wonderful place for just two people. There's something about a good walking city with lovely tree-lined streets and canals that stimulates lively impulses, and because this is not a place which is full of itself, it is far more conducive to interludes of carefree romance than other places. It just feels so comfortable being there.
Twixt 'gezellig' (cozy) and 'senang' (happy, contented).
Time goes by too fast, and before you know it you must depart.
But plan on going back again.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, October 03, 2011
PUNCAK
It's odd that the restaurant should be named after a mountain resort where Dutch civil servants went to escape the heat and eat their own food. Especially when it's one of the few places in that country where 'poffertjes' are known.
Poffertjes are perhaps the quintessential Dutch fair food. Tiny puff-batter pancakes cooked in a special pan with indentations, buttery hot and dusted with powdered sugar. Quite unsuited to the tropics. Other Dutch delicacies commonly available at hotels and restaurants there are pannekoeken (crepes) and kroketten. As well as Dutch cakes and confections.
The frikadel, which did not become well-known till the sixties, is of course unknown.
To say nothing of the bamibal or the nasischijf.
The restaurant in Amsterdam, however, serves none of those things.
But the food is very good indeed.
RESTAURANT POENTJAK PAS
Nassau Kade 366
Amsterdam
Telephone: 020-6180906
Unlike the steep slopes near the peaks of Gunung Gede and Pangrango in western Java, in the Bogor Regency, Puncak Pass restaurant in Amsterdam is in one of the flattest areas you will know. Holland does not have mountains, and the great city on the Amstel river is, essentially, a glorious mud flat. The restaurant is barely two blocks away from the Overtoom, relatively near the Van Gogh Museum and the Vondel Park.
The food, of course, is Indonesian.
In the days when the Dutch were still in Java, they sometimes times felt homesick for cool weather and Dutch food. Those who returned to Holland after the war still had the air of the Indies in their nostrils, and were homesick instead for distant emerald islands and the familiar tastes of their younger years.
The Puncak ('peak') pass area was a place additionally that many veterans were familiar with, because of heightened nationalist activity in Western Java during the Indonesian independence struggle. Western Java (Sunda) had been the heartland of the Dutch colonial world, where the empire maintained longer than anywhere else. Consequently it was also the area that many would miss the most when they departed - some of them had family histories in Sunda dating back several generations.
What you will eat at the Poentjak Pas Restaurant is some of the best Indonesian food in the Netherlands.
The proprietress, if she is still alive - it has been over ten years since I was last there - is a gracious elderly lady, whose Indonesian speech still has the antique flavour of the pre-war period.
I remember her as a warm hostess, both intensely interested in her guests as well as diplomatically discrete. The food, every single time, was stellar.
Sundanese food is not as sweet as dishes in Central Java, and has a lighter touch with strong flavours, relying instead on freshness and fragrance. With a vast array of vegetable dishes, or vegetable and meat or fish combinations, plus salads of raw and blanched ingredients, and tangy relishes, it is reputed to be good for the skin, accounting for the lovely complexions of the women in Western Java.
My uncle Jan may dream of the old days on the Puncak Pass in Indonesia.
I remember evenings at the Poentjak Pas in Amsterdam.
My memories are no less golden.
A very warm place.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Poffertjes are perhaps the quintessential Dutch fair food. Tiny puff-batter pancakes cooked in a special pan with indentations, buttery hot and dusted with powdered sugar. Quite unsuited to the tropics. Other Dutch delicacies commonly available at hotels and restaurants there are pannekoeken (crepes) and kroketten. As well as Dutch cakes and confections.
The frikadel, which did not become well-known till the sixties, is of course unknown.
To say nothing of the bamibal or the nasischijf.
The restaurant in Amsterdam, however, serves none of those things.
But the food is very good indeed.
RESTAURANT POENTJAK PAS
Nassau Kade 366
Amsterdam
Telephone: 020-6180906
Unlike the steep slopes near the peaks of Gunung Gede and Pangrango in western Java, in the Bogor Regency, Puncak Pass restaurant in Amsterdam is in one of the flattest areas you will know. Holland does not have mountains, and the great city on the Amstel river is, essentially, a glorious mud flat. The restaurant is barely two blocks away from the Overtoom, relatively near the Van Gogh Museum and the Vondel Park.
The food, of course, is Indonesian.
In the days when the Dutch were still in Java, they sometimes times felt homesick for cool weather and Dutch food. Those who returned to Holland after the war still had the air of the Indies in their nostrils, and were homesick instead for distant emerald islands and the familiar tastes of their younger years.
The Puncak ('peak') pass area was a place additionally that many veterans were familiar with, because of heightened nationalist activity in Western Java during the Indonesian independence struggle. Western Java (Sunda) had been the heartland of the Dutch colonial world, where the empire maintained longer than anywhere else. Consequently it was also the area that many would miss the most when they departed - some of them had family histories in Sunda dating back several generations.
What you will eat at the Poentjak Pas Restaurant is some of the best Indonesian food in the Netherlands.
The proprietress, if she is still alive - it has been over ten years since I was last there - is a gracious elderly lady, whose Indonesian speech still has the antique flavour of the pre-war period.
I remember her as a warm hostess, both intensely interested in her guests as well as diplomatically discrete. The food, every single time, was stellar.
Sundanese food is not as sweet as dishes in Central Java, and has a lighter touch with strong flavours, relying instead on freshness and fragrance. With a vast array of vegetable dishes, or vegetable and meat or fish combinations, plus salads of raw and blanched ingredients, and tangy relishes, it is reputed to be good for the skin, accounting for the lovely complexions of the women in Western Java.
My uncle Jan may dream of the old days on the Puncak Pass in Indonesia.
I remember evenings at the Poentjak Pas in Amsterdam.
My memories are no less golden.
A very warm place.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, August 04, 2011
OUR FRIEND THE PORCUPISC
The question today is: what looks like a burrito, and used to occasionally be found in the canals of Amsterdam?
Admittedly it hasn’t been found there for several years, probably centuries even – but in the Seventeenth Century many exemplars were spotted.
There are a few of them in the Eastern Scheldt year-round.
[The Eastern Scheldt is between Schouwen Duiveland and both Bevelands. It is to the north of the other Scheldt.]
Clue: they can be cooked with pepper, cinnamon, and saffron.
Obviously they aren’t what you originally thought.
MERE-SWINE
The floating burrito in question is, of course, the harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena), also known as the sea pig, which can also be described as having the general shape and dimension of a pudgy teenager on the football team (than which it is much more intelligent, btw).
The modern Dutch name is ‘bruinvis’ (“brown fish”), the older term was ‘meer-swyn’ (“sea pig”) – hence the Anglish-neologism with which I capped this paragraph.
Per Wikipedia, “They feed mostly on small pelagic schooling fish, particularly herring, capelin, and sprat. They will, however, also eat squid and crustaceans in some areas.”
I was reminded of these porcupisces not by the delicious burrito-especial con carnitas y salsa picante (sin frijoles) that I had for lunch today, but by an article in the Dutch press indicating that more of these creatures have washed ashore in Zeeland this year than in previous years. Fortunately the article did not have pictures of the deceased beasts, or I would have probably not have had a burrito for lunch. It was a VERY good burrito.
My fingers still smell intriguingly of grease from the other white meat.
In that the term ‘brown fish’ is virtually useless as a descriptive, the lack of photos meant that I had to look it up. Apparently the name refers to the appearance, which is not brown – it is grey, dull, or dark hued – and to the habitat of the animal: if it swims, it's fish.
It is not a fish.
The term mere-swine is much more evocative. Expressive and clear, even.
The only problem with that name is that it suggests edibility.
To the best of my knowledge, sea pig has not been on the menu in continental Europe since at least the early eighties.
Or maybe even before.
Mereswine – it’s NOT the other ‘sea kitten’.
Can’t speculate about the taste (yet), but porpoise has a helluva lot more personality than fish.
Pity they look so much like a burrito.
Or a pudgy teenage boy.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly: LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Admittedly it hasn’t been found there for several years, probably centuries even – but in the Seventeenth Century many exemplars were spotted.
There are a few of them in the Eastern Scheldt year-round.
[The Eastern Scheldt is between Schouwen Duiveland and both Bevelands. It is to the north of the other Scheldt.]
Clue: they can be cooked with pepper, cinnamon, and saffron.
Obviously they aren’t what you originally thought.
MERE-SWINE
The floating burrito in question is, of course, the harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena), also known as the sea pig, which can also be described as having the general shape and dimension of a pudgy teenager on the football team (than which it is much more intelligent, btw).
The modern Dutch name is ‘bruinvis’ (“brown fish”), the older term was ‘meer-swyn’ (“sea pig”) – hence the Anglish-neologism with which I capped this paragraph.
Per Wikipedia, “They feed mostly on small pelagic schooling fish, particularly herring, capelin, and sprat. They will, however, also eat squid and crustaceans in some areas.”
I was reminded of these porcupisces not by the delicious burrito-especial con carnitas y salsa picante (sin frijoles) that I had for lunch today, but by an article in the Dutch press indicating that more of these creatures have washed ashore in Zeeland this year than in previous years. Fortunately the article did not have pictures of the deceased beasts, or I would have probably not have had a burrito for lunch. It was a VERY good burrito.
My fingers still smell intriguingly of grease from the other white meat.
In that the term ‘brown fish’ is virtually useless as a descriptive, the lack of photos meant that I had to look it up. Apparently the name refers to the appearance, which is not brown – it is grey, dull, or dark hued – and to the habitat of the animal: if it swims, it's fish.
It is not a fish.
The term mere-swine is much more evocative. Expressive and clear, even.
The only problem with that name is that it suggests edibility.
To the best of my knowledge, sea pig has not been on the menu in continental Europe since at least the early eighties.
Or maybe even before.
Mereswine – it’s NOT the other ‘sea kitten’.
Can’t speculate about the taste (yet), but porpoise has a helluva lot more personality than fish.
Pity they look so much like a burrito.
Or a pudgy teenage boy.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly: LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, September 02, 2010
WHERE DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN IT RAINS?
There are times when the destination is the point of the journey, times when the journey itself is the point. And sometimes it is neither. The way-stations of the journey are what is important.
I was watching the cat-bus scene from My Neighbor Totoro recently, when I realized that only the large dignified furry creature was actually going somewhere. The two little girls were just waiting - the place itself was the purpose, though neither the beginning nor end of their journey.
There should have been a restaurant or café at that bus-stop. Or perhaps a noodle shop. But if there had been such a business, they would not have shared the umbrella with the troll.
Really, there's only one indoors environment in the universe where I could imagine the troll waiting for transit in the company of two little girls.
THE STATION RESTAURANT
One of the pleasures of life is arriving early at Amsterdam Central Station, so that one may refresh oneself while waiting for the train to Bun Futz in Brabant (or wherever you are going). You do this at the Grand Café Restaurant in the terminal, next to track 2B.
High ceilings. Palm trees. Coffee. A parrot.
[Address: Stationsplein 15, Centraal Station, Amsterdam; Postal code: 1012 AB. Tel: (020) 625 01 31 Fax: (020) 625 01 31]
SUMATRA HALF-CORONAS
Until a few years ago you could still smoke inside, now alas that is verboden. Times change.
In 1975 and 1976 I was there several times, enjoying the typical Dutch pleasures of a cigar and a demitasse. Sometimes a pastry, sometimes a light meal. And sometimes a big bowl of ice cream - I was, after all, still in my mid-teens, and still had childish tastes. But always a smoke, timed exactly for the period before boarding.
Once, when it was crowded, I shared the table with an angular elderly gentleman reading a newspaper. Our only moments of contact had been when I asked if he minded me sitting there, and when he had borrowed my matches to light up. After finishing his cigar he folded his newspaper very neatly, stood up, and said "bedankt voor de vriendelijke stilte, het was zeer aangenaam" ('thanks for the friendly silence, it was very enjoyable'). He then went to catch the train for the Hague, which was arriving at that precise moment.
Twelve minutes later I finished my cigar just as the train for 'sHertogenbosch pulled in.
No wasted tobacco - there's something to be said for a Dutch sense of time.
Whenever you go to Amsterdam, visit the Station Restaurant. Same thing in Antwerp. These two places are, really, the beginning and end-points of the Dutch world. Both train stations evoke the era of foreign possessions and prosperity born from tropical imports, both speak of a different time, and a different sense of our place in the universe.
They have outlived the empires. One no longer drinks coffee from "our" Java, the cigars are no longer from "our" Sumatra. The Dutch coffee and Tea companies are now largely owned by Sarah Lee, the cigar companies are almost all held by Swedish Match, and many of the great mercantile enterprises are now headquartered elsewhere.
Even the rattan in the chairs comes from 'just someplace warm'.
At the other end of the platform there is now a Burger King for the feckless. Times have changed.
==========================================================================
NOTE: If you wish, you may contact me directly:LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I was watching the cat-bus scene from My Neighbor Totoro recently, when I realized that only the large dignified furry creature was actually going somewhere. The two little girls were just waiting - the place itself was the purpose, though neither the beginning nor end of their journey.
There should have been a restaurant or café at that bus-stop. Or perhaps a noodle shop. But if there had been such a business, they would not have shared the umbrella with the troll.
Really, there's only one indoors environment in the universe where I could imagine the troll waiting for transit in the company of two little girls.
THE STATION RESTAURANT
One of the pleasures of life is arriving early at Amsterdam Central Station, so that one may refresh oneself while waiting for the train to Bun Futz in Brabant (or wherever you are going). You do this at the Grand Café Restaurant in the terminal, next to track 2B.
High ceilings. Palm trees. Coffee. A parrot.
[Address: Stationsplein 15, Centraal Station, Amsterdam; Postal code: 1012 AB. Tel: (020) 625 01 31 Fax: (020) 625 01 31]
SUMATRA HALF-CORONAS
Until a few years ago you could still smoke inside, now alas that is verboden. Times change.
In 1975 and 1976 I was there several times, enjoying the typical Dutch pleasures of a cigar and a demitasse. Sometimes a pastry, sometimes a light meal. And sometimes a big bowl of ice cream - I was, after all, still in my mid-teens, and still had childish tastes. But always a smoke, timed exactly for the period before boarding.
Once, when it was crowded, I shared the table with an angular elderly gentleman reading a newspaper. Our only moments of contact had been when I asked if he minded me sitting there, and when he had borrowed my matches to light up. After finishing his cigar he folded his newspaper very neatly, stood up, and said "bedankt voor de vriendelijke stilte, het was zeer aangenaam" ('thanks for the friendly silence, it was very enjoyable'). He then went to catch the train for the Hague, which was arriving at that precise moment.
Twelve minutes later I finished my cigar just as the train for 'sHertogenbosch pulled in.
No wasted tobacco - there's something to be said for a Dutch sense of time.
Whenever you go to Amsterdam, visit the Station Restaurant. Same thing in Antwerp. These two places are, really, the beginning and end-points of the Dutch world. Both train stations evoke the era of foreign possessions and prosperity born from tropical imports, both speak of a different time, and a different sense of our place in the universe.
They have outlived the empires. One no longer drinks coffee from "our" Java, the cigars are no longer from "our" Sumatra. The Dutch coffee and Tea companies are now largely owned by Sarah Lee, the cigar companies are almost all held by Swedish Match, and many of the great mercantile enterprises are now headquartered elsewhere.
Even the rattan in the chairs comes from 'just someplace warm'.
At the other end of the platform there is now a Burger King for the feckless. Times have changed.
==========================================================================
NOTE: If you wish, you may contact me directly:LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, October 06, 2006
OLLANDIM: BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF DUTCH JEWS
This material relating to Dutch Jewry is excerpted from a very long previous post, and presented here as a convenience for the interested. Please let me know if you have questions.
OLLANDIM
The First Arrivals in Amsterdam
In 1593, over twenty years after the Netherlands rebelled against the Spanish king Philip (who had inherited the united provinces), ten families fleeing Spain landed in Holland, and learned from Mozes Oerie Asjkenazie (Rabbi Moishe Uri, a Rabbi from Germany) that while the Dutch were suspicious of Spaniards, they were not so about Jews. Upon his advice, they took lodging in Amsterdam, and shortly afterwards all the males underwent Bris Millah, with the oldest of them, Don Jacob Tirado, going first.
Within months, their numbers had been augmented by other Iberian refugees, and that autumn the new community observed Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur in a safety that they had not enjoyed in Spain in generations.
Within a decade, in 1602, they built a synagogue which they named Beit Jacob after the man who had taken them up from Spain.
More synagogues followed - Neve Shalom was founded between 1608 and 1612, Beit Israel in 1618. The Grand Synagogue (the ‘Esnoga' or 'Gran' Esnoga') was built between 1671 and 1675.
The Rotterdam Community
A similar pattern occurred in Rotterdam, when Abraham De Pinto (Don Gyl Lopes Pinto, born Lisbon 1588, died Rotterdam 1668) fled from Antwerp with his entire family and his dependents to the north in 1647, and converted back to the faith of his ancestors.
Less than three years later the Yesiba De Los Pintos was inaugurated in Rotterdam, with Chacham Josiau Pardo (son of David Pardo, and grandson of Yoseph Pardo, chief Rabbi of Amsterdam) as Ros Yesiba.
Like Jacob Tirado, Abraham De Pinto was a converso nobleman whose family had fled to Portugal when the heat of the inquisition became too fierce in Spain. And like Jacob Tirado, he brought wealth plus business skills and commercial relationships with him when he came, having prepared his escape over a period of many years.
The Ets Haim Library
In the centuries following, more synagogues were built, printing presses founded, Rabbis educated (among them Menasseh Ben Israel (Manoel Dias Soeiro), 1604 - 1657). At the height of the community there were nearly five thousand Dutch Sefardim, at present a scant eight hundred.
In addition to the Esnoga, one other Sefardic treasure of note remains in the Netherlands, namely the Ets Haim library (which contains also the Livraria Montezinos, being the private library of David Montezinos, donated to Ets Haim in 1889), which is in the Esnoga complex, and was part of Yesiba Ets Haim (Academia Y Yesiba Ets Haim, fundado en 1616). It is one of the world’s great book collections. Six incunabula, five hundred original manuscripts and over thirty-thousand printed books, on many subjects, in over a dozen languages.
In relation to Ets Haim (the tree of life, as the Torah is to all who cleave to her), it is appropriate to quote visitors to Amsterdam who were amazed by the freedom enjoyed by Jews there, and the brazen effrontery represented by so splendid a building as the Esnoga.
Let us start with the Papal Nuncio of Cologne, Lazaro Opizio Palavicino, who wrote: "Fra i nuovi edificii, viddi la synagoga degl’Hebrei, fabrica veramente magnifica e della quale non è degna quella gente vile" (between the new buildings I saw the synagogue of the Jews, truly magnificent, and which so odious a people do not deserve).
A pox on his name.
The next is Rector Johannes Schudt of Frankfurt, who wrote as follows: "Eine allzu grosse Juden Freyheit in Holland is es, dasz man denen Juden verstattet, so gar kostbahre magnifique Synagogen zu bauen, die selbige noch als Gottes Haus lobet" (a too great freedom in Holland is, that they permit the Jews to build a maginificently expensive Synagogue, that even may represent the house of G-d).
He continues "Es setzet uns billig in die gröste verwunderung, is aber auch recht schändlich und unchristlich, dasz gar Christen für die Juden Freyheit gesucht, solche synagog erbauen dürffen" (It easily causes us the greatest wonderment, being however downright scandalous and unchristian, that even Christians should have sought for the Jews the freedom to dare build such a synagogue). It was his opinion that the officials of Amsterdam were a disgrace, and degeneratim for permitting such an affront.
A pox on his name.
On the other hand, an Italian nobleman, Guido De Bovio, who visited Amsterdam in 1677, had nothing but praise for the synagogue, describing it as splendid building, well designed, and full of light, which he delighted in visiting.
His name remains fragrant.
The final word on the Esnoga, deservedly, goes to the engraver Romeyn de Hooghe, who kvelled:
Dits ‘t leerhuys van de Wet, ‘t gebeedenhuys der Jooden,
Een bouwmans meesterstuck, de eer van ‘t nieuwe werck ,
Aan d’Aemstel en het Y; dees Godt gewyede Kerck ,
Vreest geen gewetensdrang, noch pijnigen noch dooden.
Wast eedle Juddaestam en laet uw looten bloeyen ,
Wat doet de kracht van ‘t land als burgers aenwas groeyen.
[‘This is the academy of the Law, the prayer house of the Jews, An architect’s masterpiece, and pride of the new projects At the Amstel and Y (rivers); this sanctified kirk Fears no forced faith, nor torture, nor killings. Wax, noble trunk of Judah’s tribe, and let your new growth flower, That shall strengthen the country as her citizens thrive.’]
Ashkenazim
Sefardim from Spain (and Portugal and Livorno, where many of the Sefardim had originally sought refuge) were not the main, just the first Jewish population in the Netherlands.Shortly after the Sefardim established themselves in Mokum Alef (Amsterdam), Ashkenazim from Germany flocked in, primarily to get away from the sumptuary laws, residential restrictions, and vile treatment that was traditional in Germany as regards Jews. The first Ashkenazic synagogue in Amsterdam was founded in 1635.
Even so, real equality had to wait till the Napoleonic era, though the House of Orange (ancient princely family of the Netherlands, hereditary stadtholders from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, monarchs since 1815) consistently over-ruled local government when some city fathers sought to keep Jews out (which did not prevent certain cities whose legal ties to the Princes of Orange was 'ally' rather than 'subject' from restricting them). The States General had generally legislated tolerance, but left it up to the cities and states to 'enforce' same.
By the end of the seventeenth century most Jews in the Netherlands were Ashkenazim, in proportions that, roughly speaking, have been maintained ever since – over 90 percent Ashkenazim, scarcely 3 percent Sephardim. The remainder? Mixtures of differing Jewish background, plus mixtures of Jew and Gentile.
Demographics
Most Jews lived in the Amsterdam - Rotterdam axis (about 80%), with the largest block outside being in Groningen and Drenthe provinces. A noteworthy development in many places was the gradual take-over of Jewish institutions by Ashkenazim, especially as the easterners rose in social class, and the Sefardim faded in proportion and prominence. In some areas, synagogues were fought over for three or four generations or more.
In Naarden, for instance, the Ashkenazim formed their own 'illegal' synagogue (the Sefardim had the only permit, and were the officially acknowledged leaders of the community there), and by the time the last absentee keepers of the keys (Joseph Teixeira de Mattos Henriques de Castro, David Henriques de Castro, Rachel Henriques de Castro, and Hanna Henriques de Castro, having succeeded Abraham van David Teixeira de Mattos) yielded their authority over the main synagogue (Beit Shalom) in 1885 it was nearly two centuries later, the ceiling had partially caved in, the walls were mildewed, the Ark had many years since been removed for safekeeping, and there were only about half a dozen resident members of the Sefardic kehilla left.
Another odd development were the so-called marginal or bog-Jews (similar to the hedge-Christians during the Spanish oppression): unregistered to any kehal (and so not paying any fees or dues), who, to the local Gentiles, were often just ‘those folks who don't go to our church'. Some of these were so utterly unconnected with any officially constituted Jewish bodies that a fair number were 'under the radar' during the war years. An old friend of the family named Chaim was birth-registered as Harry, because local officials did not know what a 'Chaim' was... Same situation with uncle Henry, also Chaim, who like Harry also survived those years under Gentile colours.
The middle class provincial Jews, however, who formed the link between the bog-Jews and the wider Jewish Oilam, were largely extinguished during the Shoah, and with their disappearance, many of the surviving marginal Jews disappeared from Jewish radar entirely.
Post-War Remnant
In 1945, barely twenty percent of the Jewish population of the Netherlands (over 140 thousand in the nineteen-thirties, approximately thirty-thousand in 1945) had survived the war; they returned to communities which did not recognize them, and which were not particularly happy to see them back (as their betrayers often had survived the war unscathed, and many people at all levels of society had profited from the destruction that befell the Jews). There are now approximately 45 thousand Jews in the Netherlands, of whom 35 thousand can be said to be unquestionably Jewish, with the remaining ten thousand being mixed, mostly vader joods (father-Jewish).
On September 29th, 2005, the Dutch Railway Company officially apologized for having fully co-operated with the Germans in the deportation Dutch Jews. It was because of their efficiency, professionalism, and sheer dedication that the Germans could boast that the destruction of Dutch Jewry happened with greater ease than was the case anywhere else. It couldn’t have been done without them.
Thanks for the apology, dudes.
It’s a little late.
Anecdote
Ma’ase shehaya, kach haya (a tale that happened, as follows): Many years ago, on a wintry Friday evening, a family in Den Haag has one of the kids keep an eye out for a passerby to ask to stoke the stove for them (though it is beastly cold, shabbes-melacha is out of the question). A very dignified looking gentleman comes strolling down the street, is asked in, the situation explained, and the request made. Of course he will light the stove for them, with pleasure! When he has done so, they thank him, and as was customary give him an apple for his 'labour', asking his name at the same time.
He introduces himself, and hands them his card, on which can be read that their shabbes goy is a chief justice - and, coincidentally, a fellow Jew!
ADDENDUM
Catholicism = An all-embracing and yet all-excluding religion known by Ollandim as the tofel emunah (the ‘old religion’), because so many of the first Yidden in the Netherlands were refugees from Spain and Portugal, where they had been forced to convert. It is a religion with some bizarre rituals – white smoke means "we have another pontiff", black smoke means "we’re burning down the Gran’ Esnoga, again". Pax vobiscum.
Jacob Tirado = Original name: Guimes Lopes Da Costa. He is described in correspondence as "Al muy illustre senyor Jacob Tyrado, parnas de la naçion Portuguese que reside en esta muy noble y opulenta villa de Amstradama" (The greatly illustrious gentleman Jacob Tirado, administrator of the Portugese nation, residing in the very noble and rich city Amsterdam). It should be remembered that ‘nation’ in those days did not have the connotation it has today, but referred to ethnic or national group, often residing among other such groups, much like tongue (lingua) could mean the speakers of a particular language in the armies of kings.
Ollandim = Netherlandish Jews.
OLLANDIM
The First Arrivals in Amsterdam
In 1593, over twenty years after the Netherlands rebelled against the Spanish king Philip (who had inherited the united provinces), ten families fleeing Spain landed in Holland, and learned from Mozes Oerie Asjkenazie (Rabbi Moishe Uri, a Rabbi from Germany) that while the Dutch were suspicious of Spaniards, they were not so about Jews. Upon his advice, they took lodging in Amsterdam, and shortly afterwards all the males underwent Bris Millah, with the oldest of them, Don Jacob Tirado, going first.
Within months, their numbers had been augmented by other Iberian refugees, and that autumn the new community observed Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur in a safety that they had not enjoyed in Spain in generations.
Within a decade, in 1602, they built a synagogue which they named Beit Jacob after the man who had taken them up from Spain.
More synagogues followed - Neve Shalom was founded between 1608 and 1612, Beit Israel in 1618. The Grand Synagogue (the ‘Esnoga' or 'Gran' Esnoga') was built between 1671 and 1675.
The Rotterdam Community
A similar pattern occurred in Rotterdam, when Abraham De Pinto (Don Gyl Lopes Pinto, born Lisbon 1588, died Rotterdam 1668) fled from Antwerp with his entire family and his dependents to the north in 1647, and converted back to the faith of his ancestors.
Less than three years later the Yesiba De Los Pintos was inaugurated in Rotterdam, with Chacham Josiau Pardo (son of David Pardo, and grandson of Yoseph Pardo, chief Rabbi of Amsterdam) as Ros Yesiba.
Like Jacob Tirado, Abraham De Pinto was a converso nobleman whose family had fled to Portugal when the heat of the inquisition became too fierce in Spain. And like Jacob Tirado, he brought wealth plus business skills and commercial relationships with him when he came, having prepared his escape over a period of many years.
The Ets Haim Library
In the centuries following, more synagogues were built, printing presses founded, Rabbis educated (among them Menasseh Ben Israel (Manoel Dias Soeiro), 1604 - 1657). At the height of the community there were nearly five thousand Dutch Sefardim, at present a scant eight hundred.
In addition to the Esnoga, one other Sefardic treasure of note remains in the Netherlands, namely the Ets Haim library (which contains also the Livraria Montezinos, being the private library of David Montezinos, donated to Ets Haim in 1889), which is in the Esnoga complex, and was part of Yesiba Ets Haim (Academia Y Yesiba Ets Haim, fundado en 1616). It is one of the world’s great book collections. Six incunabula, five hundred original manuscripts and over thirty-thousand printed books, on many subjects, in over a dozen languages.
In relation to Ets Haim (the tree of life, as the Torah is to all who cleave to her), it is appropriate to quote visitors to Amsterdam who were amazed by the freedom enjoyed by Jews there, and the brazen effrontery represented by so splendid a building as the Esnoga.
Let us start with the Papal Nuncio of Cologne, Lazaro Opizio Palavicino, who wrote: "Fra i nuovi edificii, viddi la synagoga degl’Hebrei, fabrica veramente magnifica e della quale non è degna quella gente vile" (between the new buildings I saw the synagogue of the Jews, truly magnificent, and which so odious a people do not deserve).
A pox on his name.
The next is Rector Johannes Schudt of Frankfurt, who wrote as follows: "Eine allzu grosse Juden Freyheit in Holland is es, dasz man denen Juden verstattet, so gar kostbahre magnifique Synagogen zu bauen, die selbige noch als Gottes Haus lobet" (a too great freedom in Holland is, that they permit the Jews to build a maginificently expensive Synagogue, that even may represent the house of G-d).
He continues "Es setzet uns billig in die gröste verwunderung, is aber auch recht schändlich und unchristlich, dasz gar Christen für die Juden Freyheit gesucht, solche synagog erbauen dürffen" (It easily causes us the greatest wonderment, being however downright scandalous and unchristian, that even Christians should have sought for the Jews the freedom to dare build such a synagogue). It was his opinion that the officials of Amsterdam were a disgrace, and degeneratim for permitting such an affront.
A pox on his name.
On the other hand, an Italian nobleman, Guido De Bovio, who visited Amsterdam in 1677, had nothing but praise for the synagogue, describing it as splendid building, well designed, and full of light, which he delighted in visiting.
His name remains fragrant.
The final word on the Esnoga, deservedly, goes to the engraver Romeyn de Hooghe, who kvelled:
Dits ‘t leerhuys van de Wet, ‘t gebeedenhuys der Jooden,
Een bouwmans meesterstuck, de eer van ‘t nieuwe werck ,
Aan d’Aemstel en het Y; dees Godt gewyede Kerck ,
Vreest geen gewetensdrang, noch pijnigen noch dooden.
Wast eedle Juddaestam en laet uw looten bloeyen ,
Wat doet de kracht van ‘t land als burgers aenwas groeyen.
[‘This is the academy of the Law, the prayer house of the Jews, An architect’s masterpiece, and pride of the new projects At the Amstel and Y (rivers); this sanctified kirk Fears no forced faith, nor torture, nor killings. Wax, noble trunk of Judah’s tribe, and let your new growth flower, That shall strengthen the country as her citizens thrive.’]
Ashkenazim
Sefardim from Spain (and Portugal and Livorno, where many of the Sefardim had originally sought refuge) were not the main, just the first Jewish population in the Netherlands.Shortly after the Sefardim established themselves in Mokum Alef (Amsterdam), Ashkenazim from Germany flocked in, primarily to get away from the sumptuary laws, residential restrictions, and vile treatment that was traditional in Germany as regards Jews. The first Ashkenazic synagogue in Amsterdam was founded in 1635.
Even so, real equality had to wait till the Napoleonic era, though the House of Orange (ancient princely family of the Netherlands, hereditary stadtholders from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, monarchs since 1815) consistently over-ruled local government when some city fathers sought to keep Jews out (which did not prevent certain cities whose legal ties to the Princes of Orange was 'ally' rather than 'subject' from restricting them). The States General had generally legislated tolerance, but left it up to the cities and states to 'enforce' same.
By the end of the seventeenth century most Jews in the Netherlands were Ashkenazim, in proportions that, roughly speaking, have been maintained ever since – over 90 percent Ashkenazim, scarcely 3 percent Sephardim. The remainder? Mixtures of differing Jewish background, plus mixtures of Jew and Gentile.
Demographics
Most Jews lived in the Amsterdam - Rotterdam axis (about 80%), with the largest block outside being in Groningen and Drenthe provinces. A noteworthy development in many places was the gradual take-over of Jewish institutions by Ashkenazim, especially as the easterners rose in social class, and the Sefardim faded in proportion and prominence. In some areas, synagogues were fought over for three or four generations or more.
In Naarden, for instance, the Ashkenazim formed their own 'illegal' synagogue (the Sefardim had the only permit, and were the officially acknowledged leaders of the community there), and by the time the last absentee keepers of the keys (Joseph Teixeira de Mattos Henriques de Castro, David Henriques de Castro, Rachel Henriques de Castro, and Hanna Henriques de Castro, having succeeded Abraham van David Teixeira de Mattos) yielded their authority over the main synagogue (Beit Shalom) in 1885 it was nearly two centuries later, the ceiling had partially caved in, the walls were mildewed, the Ark had many years since been removed for safekeeping, and there were only about half a dozen resident members of the Sefardic kehilla left.
Another odd development were the so-called marginal or bog-Jews (similar to the hedge-Christians during the Spanish oppression): unregistered to any kehal (and so not paying any fees or dues), who, to the local Gentiles, were often just ‘those folks who don't go to our church'. Some of these were so utterly unconnected with any officially constituted Jewish bodies that a fair number were 'under the radar' during the war years. An old friend of the family named Chaim was birth-registered as Harry, because local officials did not know what a 'Chaim' was... Same situation with uncle Henry, also Chaim, who like Harry also survived those years under Gentile colours.
The middle class provincial Jews, however, who formed the link between the bog-Jews and the wider Jewish Oilam, were largely extinguished during the Shoah, and with their disappearance, many of the surviving marginal Jews disappeared from Jewish radar entirely.
Post-War Remnant
In 1945, barely twenty percent of the Jewish population of the Netherlands (over 140 thousand in the nineteen-thirties, approximately thirty-thousand in 1945) had survived the war; they returned to communities which did not recognize them, and which were not particularly happy to see them back (as their betrayers often had survived the war unscathed, and many people at all levels of society had profited from the destruction that befell the Jews). There are now approximately 45 thousand Jews in the Netherlands, of whom 35 thousand can be said to be unquestionably Jewish, with the remaining ten thousand being mixed, mostly vader joods (father-Jewish).
On September 29th, 2005, the Dutch Railway Company officially apologized for having fully co-operated with the Germans in the deportation Dutch Jews. It was because of their efficiency, professionalism, and sheer dedication that the Germans could boast that the destruction of Dutch Jewry happened with greater ease than was the case anywhere else. It couldn’t have been done without them.
Thanks for the apology, dudes.
It’s a little late.
Anecdote
Ma’ase shehaya, kach haya (a tale that happened, as follows): Many years ago, on a wintry Friday evening, a family in Den Haag has one of the kids keep an eye out for a passerby to ask to stoke the stove for them (though it is beastly cold, shabbes-melacha is out of the question). A very dignified looking gentleman comes strolling down the street, is asked in, the situation explained, and the request made. Of course he will light the stove for them, with pleasure! When he has done so, they thank him, and as was customary give him an apple for his 'labour', asking his name at the same time.
He introduces himself, and hands them his card, on which can be read that their shabbes goy is a chief justice - and, coincidentally, a fellow Jew!
ADDENDUM
Catholicism = An all-embracing and yet all-excluding religion known by Ollandim as the tofel emunah (the ‘old religion’), because so many of the first Yidden in the Netherlands were refugees from Spain and Portugal, where they had been forced to convert. It is a religion with some bizarre rituals – white smoke means "we have another pontiff", black smoke means "we’re burning down the Gran’ Esnoga, again". Pax vobiscum.
Jacob Tirado = Original name: Guimes Lopes Da Costa. He is described in correspondence as "Al muy illustre senyor Jacob Tyrado, parnas de la naçion Portuguese que reside en esta muy noble y opulenta villa de Amstradama" (The greatly illustrious gentleman Jacob Tirado, administrator of the Portugese nation, residing in the very noble and rich city Amsterdam). It should be remembered that ‘nation’ in those days did not have the connotation it has today, but referred to ethnic or national group, often residing among other such groups, much like tongue (lingua) could mean the speakers of a particular language in the armies of kings.
Ollandim = Netherlandish Jews.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
PEAR KUGEL - FORK IT PENSIVELY
Food is a consuming passion.
Now put down those greasy beef ribs and pay attention!
I wish to explain how this posting came about.
Food one: My previous posting was about gefilte fish, in response to a posting by AddeRabbi (On The Contrary.........................(הפוך (ב, whose blog is here: http://adderabbi.blogspot.com/).
Food two: In a comment underneath a posting about books on TAFKA PP's blog (posting here: http://goingslightlymad.blogspot.com/2006/08/bookends.html I mentioned five kinds of cocoa powder. Maturity means more chocolate. Who knew?
Food three: Underneath a posting by Lipman (see here: http://lipmans.blogspot.com/2006/08/second-generation-syndrome.html) I made reference to Ischa Meijer (Israël Chaim Meijer, b. 1943 d. 1995), writing "Ischa was a playwright, theatre critic (totally vicious!), columnist and interviewer, and, ironically, as good a chronicler and word-portrettist of Amsterdam as his father (Jacob Meijer, b. 1912 d. 1993). He too was a depressed and angry man, and hard to get along with."
Ischa Meijer wrote a column for many years for Het Parool under the pen-name 'De Dikke Man' (the fat man), anecdoting fondly & wistfully about Amsterdam. He brought the city to life as no other, and I enjoy rereading his daily columns whenever I feel in an Amsterdammish mood.
Unfortunately for you, dear reader, he wrote in Dutch - language of Vondel (Joost van den Vondel, 1587 -1679), Brederode (Gerbrand Adriaenszoon Bredero, 1585 - 1618, and Willem Godschalck van Focquenbroch (pronounce it slowly, 1640 - 1670). A wonderfull lashoin in which you are not yet fully literate.
But despair not.
You too can davka recapture the taam of his writing.
In a few of his columns he fondly mentions a Jewish dish made in Amsterdam, and still served by a few of the local corner koffie huizen, often only to favoured customers (so, why not go to Mokum Alef, and live for a few months near a promising koffie huis - you won't regret it).
Perenkugel - pear kugel.
One of his characters pensively states that each family must have two recipes. The recipe that the husband got from his mother, and the recipe that the wife got from hers. And that it is wise to say that the wife's recipe is the better one.
Even though that isn't true.
Your mother's recipe is always better.
This is my recipe. No mothers or wives were directly involved.
It is an all-male recipe.
PEREN KUGEL
[Sufficient for three hungry folks, or maybe eight or nine wussies.]
Four and a half pounds of pears; peeled, cored, thick cut.
Three and a half cups of flour; sifted.
Two cups of sugar, plus two TBS of sugar for the pear-poaching liquid.
One cup butter (2 sticks), or pareve margerine.
Half a cup ginger in syrup, chopped, with the syrup.
Half a cup raisins, rinsed.
One Tsp. cinnamon powder.
Pinches of ground cardamom, salt.
Zest of half a lemon, plus the juice.
Poach pears in water to cover, with the two TBS of sugar and the lemon juice, till semi tender.
Make a flexible though stiff dough of the other ingredients - add some of the pear poaching liquid if necessary, or more flour if it is too gloopy. Place the dough on top of the pears. Add more water to make the liquid come to just over the top of the dough. Place a heavy lid on the pot - use a kitchen towel to keep the steam in. Cook on low heat (use a heat absorber) for about six hours, adding more water if needed to keep the kugel from drying out. Let cool, and turn onto a platter.
----------------------------
NOTE I: The kugel can be set on the blech on Friday afternoon, and eaten the next day with lunch. After which you will probably want to sleep till Motzei Shabbes.
NOTE II: Like appeltaart (a thick apple tart, which is another typical Amsterdam, and hence Amsterdam Jewish, food item), peren kugel is the stuff of polite but very stubborn differences of opinion. Some people add almonds (beh!), others add more syrup-ginger and ginger powder (too much!), and of course some folks use vanilla.....(!!!).
Everybody has pretty much the same reaction when they eat some-one else's pear kugel: "this is good, yes, very good. It reminds me of... but there is just one tiny little thing, unimportant really, and I probably shouldn't mention it, but you know how it is, perhaps, just perhaps, and I hope you don't mind my saying this, next time you should......" and then follows some totally unimportant tiny little 'improvement' which you should just ignore.
I add a splash of strong coffee to the poaching liquid - it sparks up the flavour of the pears.
NOTE III: Mentioning food (1, 2, and 3 above) started a mental chain reaction and a process of association.
The process was helped along by fellow Californian blogger Chardal (blog here: http://chardal.blogspot.com/) waxing ecstatic: "Ah, the kishke - an indispensable staple of the Ashkenazi chulent. Well, there is real kishke and then there is what people today call kishke.
What people today call kishke is a type of well-spiced dough which is inserted into the chulent and slow-cooked until it absorbs all the flavors of the other foods in the cholent - quite delicious though it does not compare to the real variety. Most people do not make this dough at home but rather buy it at a store."
NOTE IV: Chulent / Cholent (pron: Tsholnt!!!) = a heavy casserole containing meat, vegs, lentils or beans, and fat or oil, which is cooked long and slow by putting it into the oven on Friday afternoon, before the start of the Sabbath, and leaving it to cook overnight for Saturday lunch (and so having a warm meal without breaking the injuction about labour on the Sabbath).
And of course you already know how to make Tsholnt, don't you?
Simmer two pounds of lamb with two chopped onions, two cups of garbanzos, two quartered potatoes, carrots, garlic, black pepper, paprika, a goodly dash of olive oil, and pinches saffron, cinnamon powder, and dry ginger, with water to well cover, in a heavy casserole with a tight fitting lid, at 200 degrees from Friday afternoon till mid-day Saturday. Then tell the shabbes-goy to 'remove it from the oven, place it on the table, and now please leave yes thank you very much goodbye see you next week'.
Eat smakelyk, y'all.
Now put down those greasy beef ribs and pay attention!
I wish to explain how this posting came about.
Food one: My previous posting was about gefilte fish, in response to a posting by AddeRabbi (On The Contrary.........................(הפוך (ב, whose blog is here: http://adderabbi.blogspot.com/).
Food two: In a comment underneath a posting about books on TAFKA PP's blog (posting here: http://goingslightlymad.blogspot.com/2006/08/bookends.html I mentioned five kinds of cocoa powder. Maturity means more chocolate. Who knew?
Food three: Underneath a posting by Lipman (see here: http://lipmans.blogspot.com/2006/08/second-generation-syndrome.html) I made reference to Ischa Meijer (Israël Chaim Meijer, b. 1943 d. 1995), writing "Ischa was a playwright, theatre critic (totally vicious!), columnist and interviewer, and, ironically, as good a chronicler and word-portrettist of Amsterdam as his father (Jacob Meijer, b. 1912 d. 1993). He too was a depressed and angry man, and hard to get along with."
Ischa Meijer wrote a column for many years for Het Parool under the pen-name 'De Dikke Man' (the fat man), anecdoting fondly & wistfully about Amsterdam. He brought the city to life as no other, and I enjoy rereading his daily columns whenever I feel in an Amsterdammish mood.
Unfortunately for you, dear reader, he wrote in Dutch - language of Vondel (Joost van den Vondel, 1587 -1679), Brederode (Gerbrand Adriaenszoon Bredero, 1585 - 1618, and Willem Godschalck van Focquenbroch (pronounce it slowly, 1640 - 1670). A wonderfull lashoin in which you are not yet fully literate.
But despair not.
You too can davka recapture the taam of his writing.
In a few of his columns he fondly mentions a Jewish dish made in Amsterdam, and still served by a few of the local corner koffie huizen, often only to favoured customers (so, why not go to Mokum Alef, and live for a few months near a promising koffie huis - you won't regret it).
Perenkugel - pear kugel.
One of his characters pensively states that each family must have two recipes. The recipe that the husband got from his mother, and the recipe that the wife got from hers. And that it is wise to say that the wife's recipe is the better one.
Even though that isn't true.
Your mother's recipe is always better.
This is my recipe. No mothers or wives were directly involved.
It is an all-male recipe.
PEREN KUGEL
[Sufficient for three hungry folks, or maybe eight or nine wussies.]
Four and a half pounds of pears; peeled, cored, thick cut.
Three and a half cups of flour; sifted.
Two cups of sugar, plus two TBS of sugar for the pear-poaching liquid.
One cup butter (2 sticks), or pareve margerine.
Half a cup ginger in syrup, chopped, with the syrup.
Half a cup raisins, rinsed.
One Tsp. cinnamon powder.
Pinches of ground cardamom, salt.
Zest of half a lemon, plus the juice.
Poach pears in water to cover, with the two TBS of sugar and the lemon juice, till semi tender.
Make a flexible though stiff dough of the other ingredients - add some of the pear poaching liquid if necessary, or more flour if it is too gloopy. Place the dough on top of the pears. Add more water to make the liquid come to just over the top of the dough. Place a heavy lid on the pot - use a kitchen towel to keep the steam in. Cook on low heat (use a heat absorber) for about six hours, adding more water if needed to keep the kugel from drying out. Let cool, and turn onto a platter.
----------------------------
NOTE I: The kugel can be set on the blech on Friday afternoon, and eaten the next day with lunch. After which you will probably want to sleep till Motzei Shabbes.
NOTE II: Like appeltaart (a thick apple tart, which is another typical Amsterdam, and hence Amsterdam Jewish, food item), peren kugel is the stuff of polite but very stubborn differences of opinion. Some people add almonds (beh!), others add more syrup-ginger and ginger powder (too much!), and of course some folks use vanilla.....(!!!).
Everybody has pretty much the same reaction when they eat some-one else's pear kugel: "this is good, yes, very good. It reminds me of... but there is just one tiny little thing, unimportant really, and I probably shouldn't mention it, but you know how it is, perhaps, just perhaps, and I hope you don't mind my saying this, next time you should......" and then follows some totally unimportant tiny little 'improvement' which you should just ignore.
I add a splash of strong coffee to the poaching liquid - it sparks up the flavour of the pears.
NOTE III: Mentioning food (1, 2, and 3 above) started a mental chain reaction and a process of association.
The process was helped along by fellow Californian blogger Chardal (blog here: http://chardal.blogspot.com/) waxing ecstatic: "Ah, the kishke - an indispensable staple of the Ashkenazi chulent. Well, there is real kishke and then there is what people today call kishke.
What people today call kishke is a type of well-spiced dough which is inserted into the chulent and slow-cooked until it absorbs all the flavors of the other foods in the cholent - quite delicious though it does not compare to the real variety. Most people do not make this dough at home but rather buy it at a store."
NOTE IV: Chulent / Cholent (pron: Tsholnt!!!) = a heavy casserole containing meat, vegs, lentils or beans, and fat or oil, which is cooked long and slow by putting it into the oven on Friday afternoon, before the start of the Sabbath, and leaving it to cook overnight for Saturday lunch (and so having a warm meal without breaking the injuction about labour on the Sabbath).
And of course you already know how to make Tsholnt, don't you?
Simmer two pounds of lamb with two chopped onions, two cups of garbanzos, two quartered potatoes, carrots, garlic, black pepper, paprika, a goodly dash of olive oil, and pinches saffron, cinnamon powder, and dry ginger, with water to well cover, in a heavy casserole with a tight fitting lid, at 200 degrees from Friday afternoon till mid-day Saturday. Then tell the shabbes-goy to 'remove it from the oven, place it on the table, and now please leave yes thank you very much goodbye see you next week'.
Eat smakelyk, y'all.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
VICIOUS DUTCH VERSES... GERBRAND ADRIAENSZOON VAN BREDERO
Imagine the scene.... a smelly, smoke-filled tavern near the Spui square in Amsterdam nearly four centuries ago. A youngish fellow (Bredero), with a sharp intelligent face, happily recites his latest poem. It is an appalling slander of a person known to all, and very eloquent. There is much laughter and applause, and rounds of drink provided, if only he will recite it again. And one more time.
Unfortunately some friends of the butt of this verse are present and a violent riot ensues, in which the smart-aleck poet barely escapes with his life.
Follows a quick paraphrasis of the poem in question - Dutch first, English immediately underneath each line.
Daer ick gister avond quam
What I observed last night...
De Gierighe Gerrit, die lebbige dief,
[Penurious Jerry, that lusty thief, ]
Die vrijt nu zijns ghelijck,
[Is courting now an ugly bitch.]
Wangt hy het Modde van Gompen lief,
[He is enamoured of 'Muddy' from Gompen, ]
Die leelijck is en rijck.
[Who is horrible, but rich. ]
Sy het ien asingt ruym van vel,
[There is a peculiarity to her skin, ]
Niet muisvael, noch niet bongt,
[Tis neither mousy nor ruddy, ]
Na 't rotte-graeu gelijcket wel,
[But appears rotten grey, and seems ]
Maer swart wst inde grongt.
[To border on the hue of clay. ]
Haer tangden zijn Kastangie bruyn,
[Her teeth are chestnut brown, ]
Heur lippen pimpelpaers,
[Her lips are pimple-purple. ]
Se het ien veurhooft tot heur kruyn,
[Her forehead extends unto her crown, ]
En hier en daer wat haers.
[With here and there... some hair. ]
In haer vermaelde wangen blieck,
[In her pale marble-like cheeks, ]
En in heur moye kin,
[And in her monumental chin, ]
Daet sietmen 't leger vande Grieck
[Are vistas that recall the Greeks... ]
En trotsche Troyen in.
[Most particularly the sack of Troy. ]
Se is geborst, gebuyckt, gebilt
[She is breasted, bellied, buttocked, ]
En louter inde vangh,
[Generously, and way too broad. ]
Praet van Rosbaijer soo ghy wilt,
[Speak of your famous steeds, ]
Dees het ien ander gangh.
[This one lumbers like a carter's nag. ]
Dit monstrum oft gediert
[This monstrous exemplar, this ghastly beast, ]
Dat voert soo hooghen pracht,
[Adorned with an excess of fripperies, ]
Daer wordt ghien snof, gien snee versiert,
[There is no frill, ribbon, or fashionable tuck, ]
Of't is heur daegh'lijcx dracht.
[That she doesn't wear each day.]
Gerrit is wat root en wat blaeu,
[Jerry is a bit ruddy, a bit blue, ]
Wat paers, wat kakelbongt,
[Purplish, and mottled; ]
Sen tangden an ien wouw klaeu
[His teeth, like misplaced claws, ]
Staen averechts in sen mongt.
[Stand at right angles to his jaws. ]
Hy sieter no soo Jongetjes uyt,
[He still looks quite youngish, ]
Wangt hy het corts ehaert,
[Short of hair, a youthfull cut... ]
Na dat hy schoon wat uyt eruyt,
[But half of his chin hairs have fallen out, ]
Kreegh hy sen twiede baert.
[And he's got a veritable pelt from the neck down. ]
Hy is soo anxstelijcke moy,
[He is indeed so gut-wrenchingly ugly, ]
Men vreest datmen hun siet,
[That he terrifies at first glance. ]
Sijn Vaer het brieven van Octroy,
[His daddy, who owns the 'copyright' on this product, ]
Men macht na-drucken niet.
[Is forbidden to ever reproduce it again. ]
So yemandt noch een stempel vindt,
[If any should ever find the molds (from which these two were made) ]
Die kaptse vry an twee
[Feel free to split them in two, ]
En drijftse met die woeste wint
[And cast them to the winds, ]
Diep inde Zuyer Zee.
[Deep in the middle of the Yssel lake. ]
Gerbrandt Adriaensz. Bredero (1585-1618)
Unfortunately some friends of the butt of this verse are present and a violent riot ensues, in which the smart-aleck poet barely escapes with his life.
Follows a quick paraphrasis of the poem in question - Dutch first, English immediately underneath each line.
Daer ick gister avond quam
What I observed last night...
De Gierighe Gerrit, die lebbige dief,
[Penurious Jerry, that lusty thief, ]
Die vrijt nu zijns ghelijck,
[Is courting now an ugly bitch.]
Wangt hy het Modde van Gompen lief,
[He is enamoured of 'Muddy' from Gompen, ]
Die leelijck is en rijck.
[Who is horrible, but rich. ]
Sy het ien asingt ruym van vel,
[There is a peculiarity to her skin, ]
Niet muisvael, noch niet bongt,
[Tis neither mousy nor ruddy, ]
Na 't rotte-graeu gelijcket wel,
[But appears rotten grey, and seems ]
Maer swart wst inde grongt.
[To border on the hue of clay. ]
Haer tangden zijn Kastangie bruyn,
[Her teeth are chestnut brown, ]
Heur lippen pimpelpaers,
[Her lips are pimple-purple. ]
Se het ien veurhooft tot heur kruyn,
[Her forehead extends unto her crown, ]
En hier en daer wat haers.
[With here and there... some hair. ]
In haer vermaelde wangen blieck,
[In her pale marble-like cheeks, ]
En in heur moye kin,
[And in her monumental chin, ]
Daet sietmen 't leger vande Grieck
[Are vistas that recall the Greeks... ]
En trotsche Troyen in.
[Most particularly the sack of Troy. ]
Se is geborst, gebuyckt, gebilt
[She is breasted, bellied, buttocked, ]
En louter inde vangh,
[Generously, and way too broad. ]
Praet van Rosbaijer soo ghy wilt,
[Speak of your famous steeds, ]
Dees het ien ander gangh.
[This one lumbers like a carter's nag. ]
Dit monstrum oft gediert
[This monstrous exemplar, this ghastly beast, ]
Dat voert soo hooghen pracht,
[Adorned with an excess of fripperies, ]
Daer wordt ghien snof, gien snee versiert,
[There is no frill, ribbon, or fashionable tuck, ]
Of't is heur daegh'lijcx dracht.
[That she doesn't wear each day.]
Gerrit is wat root en wat blaeu,
[Jerry is a bit ruddy, a bit blue, ]
Wat paers, wat kakelbongt,
[Purplish, and mottled; ]
Sen tangden an ien wouw klaeu
[His teeth, like misplaced claws, ]
Staen averechts in sen mongt.
[Stand at right angles to his jaws. ]
Hy sieter no soo Jongetjes uyt,
[He still looks quite youngish, ]
Wangt hy het corts ehaert,
[Short of hair, a youthfull cut... ]
Na dat hy schoon wat uyt eruyt,
[But half of his chin hairs have fallen out, ]
Kreegh hy sen twiede baert.
[And he's got a veritable pelt from the neck down. ]
Hy is soo anxstelijcke moy,
[He is indeed so gut-wrenchingly ugly, ]
Men vreest datmen hun siet,
[That he terrifies at first glance. ]
Sijn Vaer het brieven van Octroy,
[His daddy, who owns the 'copyright' on this product, ]
Men macht na-drucken niet.
[Is forbidden to ever reproduce it again. ]
So yemandt noch een stempel vindt,
[If any should ever find the molds (from which these two were made) ]
Die kaptse vry an twee
[Feel free to split them in two, ]
En drijftse met die woeste wint
[And cast them to the winds, ]
Diep inde Zuyer Zee.
[Deep in the middle of the Yssel lake. ]
Gerbrandt Adriaensz. Bredero (1585-1618)
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