Serves four:

• 1500 ml water
• 400 g brisket (rib of beef)
• salt
• 400 g green runner beans, cut into squares
• 400 g peeled celeriac in cubes
• 200 g waxy potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 2 leeks in thick slices
• a pot of white beans, drained weight approx. 400 g
• chopped parsley

 

Serve with:

• buttered slices of white bread
• thin slices of Naegelholt or smoke-dried beef

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‘Humkes’ is a Low Saxon word for the ‘squares’ in which the beans are cut. This soup is a regional dish in the Dutch provinces Guelderland and Overijssel. It is old-fashioned kettle fare – in the past potagie, a one-pan dish cooked over an open fire, cooked with what was available. This is also the case with our soup. There are many variations, with spare ribs, fresh sausage and smoked bacon. But this is a deluxe version with beef.

White beans and runner beans are ripe just at the time of the grain harvest and during that period the soup was served in a festive manner with the, at the time, also very luxurious white bread, spread with butter and wafer-thin slices of Naegelholt, a dried piece of beef from the so-called muis (silverside), seasoned with nutmeg or cloves.

This beef was dried in the wieme, a slatted cage that sat between the ceiling beams in the living room. It also held sausages and sides of bacon. Naegelholt is still sold by some butchers in the Achterhoek, Twente, Veluwe, Salland and Drenthe and has rightly been included in the Ark of the Taste of Slow Food. Go and taste it on the spot. But you can also opt for smoke-dried beef, as on the picture.

Serves two:

• orange pumpkin of about 1.25 kg
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 chopped onion
• 250 g cleaned Brussels sprouts

 

Sauce:

• 2 heaped tablespoons fair trade peanut butter
• 1 clove garlic, pressed
• 1-2 tablespoons lemon juice
• salt
• water

 

Garnish:

• red pepper
• chopped parsley
• cornflakes

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‘American’ because of the ingredients, especially peanut butter and cornflakes. Doctor and vegetarian John Harvey Kellogg claimed that he invented peanut butter around 1890 for patients with dental problems. ‘Not at all certain’, writes Andrew F. Smith in The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink (2007). And he immediately adds that people in South America, where the bean is native, and in Africa, where it was planted by slave traders as food for their merchandise, also ate it ground. Slaves in turn brought it back to North America. The Dutch word pinda for peanut was derived from Congolese via Papiamento.

Since Kellogg was an exceptionally good promoter, peanut butter became a hit among vegetarians, but not only there. Children liked it and could spread it on their own bread, which made the product so popular in 1920 that it had a profound influence on the cuisine of North America. Americans love their peanuts very much. For example Andrew Smith experiences the smell of peanut roasting  as ‘heavenly’ and sees the combination of peanuts/chocolate (peanut rocks!) as ‘a marriage made in heaven’.

For two:

 

• 200 g minced lean beef or lamb
• 75 g bulgur
• 50 g chopped red onion
• 25 g chopped  red bell pepper
• 2 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
• 2 tbsp chopped basil
• pepper, salt
• cayenne to taste
• 2 full tbsp double concentrated tomato purée
• 300 ml water
• 1 aubergine (300 g)

 

Garnish:

• 2 tbsp pine nuts
• basil and parsley leaves

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Aubergine is a most popular vegetable in the Middle East and Caucasus. Arabs came across this plant which has its origins in India during their conquest of Persia in the ninth century. They transformed the Persian name batingaan  into al-bādhinjān, which became aubergine  f.i. in French, English, Danish, Swedish and Dutch and berenjena in Spanish. From there they spread the vegetable over their immense realm as far as Spain. But not immediately.

Charles Perry cites a statement from a Bedouin in the eleventh century in Medieval Arab Cookery (2001, p. 243) : ‘Even if Maryam the mother of Jesus split it, and Sarah the wife of Abraham cooked it, and Fatima the daughter of the Prophet served it, I would have no taste for it.’

That kind of remarks I have heard in my nearest environment. But they changed their mind because of dishes like this one,  Missov Simpoogi Dolma. It stems from the rich Armenian cooking tradition. Dolma is Turkish for ‘filled’, but the taste is purely Armenian

Serves 4:

• 2 kg finest white asparagus
• 20 g salt
• small new potatoes to taste, scraped
• 4 eggs
• 8 thick slices cooked ham (not smoked)
• 100 g butter
• grated nutmeg
• parsley

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Early in the last century a priest, who was looking for a way to make money for his poor parishioners from the sandy soil in his parish, brought the white asparagus to the province of Limburg. Nowadays in Limburg as well as in Brabant there is an Asparagus Society which is organising peeling competitions and asparagus feasts. An asparagus museum in Horst explains everything about cultivation. From the middle of May the ‘asparagus road’ N271 in Limburg is dotted with stalls and restaurants specialising in asparagus. A solemn mass is celebrated in St Jan’s Cathedral in ‘s Hertogenbosch on June 24 to bid the vegetable farewell: Houdoe asperge!

Serves two:

 

• 100 g bulgur
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• pepper, salt
• 1 aubergine (approx. 350 g)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 2 tbsp chopped onion
• 1 clove garlic
• half green pepper
• 1 peeled Roma tomato
• 10 ‘ready-to-eat’ dried apricots
• 2 tbsp blanched hazelnuts
• pinch of ground coriander,
• cinnamon and cardamom
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• coriander leaves

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Badindjan mahsji bi’l misjmisj from the rich collection of Middle Eastern recipes without meat. The cooking in the now Arabic-speaking countries was already environmentally friendly before the word existed. Lots of vegetables, grains, nuts and legumes.

The appreciation for this kind of dishes in those regions does not date from today or yesterday. Take Daniel from the Old Testament. He refused to follow the menu of King Nebuchadnezzar and asked for vegetables and water. And what happened? He became very handsome and fit (Dan.1:1-21) and was not torn by the lions. So if you want to seduce a lion, don’t eat meat!

Serves two:

 

• handful of Brussels sprouts
• 1 parsnip
• piece of winter carrot
• piece of celeriac
• half Hokkaido pumpkin
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 shallots in rings
• 125 g chestnut mushrooms
• half a can of chestnut puree (220 g)
• plenty of pepper
• salt
• thyme

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Villages on the  Veluwe, a wooded region in the middle of the Netherlands, welcome visitors in autumn with a market full of seasonal products, accompanied by the local amateur brass band which enthusiastically plays popular music under the falling leaves. Eventually their harmony is rewarded with a hearty meal. Sweet chestnuts predominate, harmonizing with other autumn vegetables. The shiny chestnuts can be found all over the Veluwe. We once collected them diligently. But since the day our whole harvest turned out to be infested by worms we definitely  prefer a can.

Oh yes, if you abhor canned food, you can prepare them yourself, but it is quite a job. First cut a cross in the top, and put them for 15 minutes in an oven preheated at 200˚C. Peel them while warm (the bitter dark skin has to go: difficult!). Thereafter boil in water for 10 minutes. And in this case, finally mash them.

A nice side effect of this dish is that you can put leftover vegetables in it because the above combination is only an idea. After all, every recipe should be open-ended: tastes differ.

Croûtons:

• slices stale French bread
• olive oil

 

Sauce and fish:

• 400 ml concentrated fish stock
• (fumet)
• 150 ml dry white wine
• 1 green paprika
• 1 red paprika
• 1 onion
• 2 Roma tomatoes
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp tomato purée
• pinch of cayenne
• 2 pieces (Atlantic) cod fillet
• à 150 g
• plain flour, salt, olive oil

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Very South European with that pleasant aroma of olive oil, garlic and tomato. Nevertheless the Ttoro stems from times when tomatoes were unknown because in old descriptions it is simply the cooking liquid of le stoque-fishe poured over pieces of bread fried in oil. Later on people from Saint-Jean- de-Luz added pieces of fresh fish such as angler and hake with scampi, mussels and bell peppers and tomatoes imported from America.

Basques are traditionally tough seamen and word has it that during whale fishing they discovered the coast of New Foundland far before Columbus. From then on, according to some food historians, the finest ‘American’ dishes were invented in French Basque Country.

For this simple version I used fish stock and fillet. For even at a fish shop you cannot always find a whole fish with clear eyes, from which you can use the head and tail for the sauce and cut the rest in slices.

Serves two:

 

• 200 g lean ground beef
• 2 tbsp breadcrumbs
• 1 tbsp finely chopped chives
• pepper and salt
• 2 tbsp butter
• 200 g unpeeled small potatoes
• 300 g cleaned Brussels sprouts
• 100 g cranberries
• liquid honey

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Is your birthday party getting a bit boring? Throw a sprout into the group. Literally or figuratively, it doesn’t matter. Success guaranteed, because Brussels sprouts loosen tongues: you get the craziest stories, both from those who love them and from those who hate them.

And yet we have long disposed the unpleasant smell which according to the Dutch writer Brandt Corstius rose from so many Dutch novels. The solution: we no longer cook them gray.

Yet the resistance among some is understandable: they used to be forced on children. The rule in the Netherlands was that a child had to eat at least the number of Brussels sprouts as his or her years of age. Time and again.

Brussels sprouts and other varieties of hardy cabbage were compulsory autumn and winter fare. However, children taste bitterness much more strongly than adults. It protects them from eating potentially dangerous herbs and vegetables. Researchers of the chemical senses have established this. A friend of mine reported that his parents left him hanging over his plate of Brussels sprouts for hours. When they finally left the room for a moment, he jumped up and buried the contents of his plate in the garden. His offspring no longer needs to take such risks. That exciting bitterness, the taste of danger, has been removed by cultivation. A pity in my opinion! This recipe brings it back with the cranberries and smoothes it a bit with honey. A recipe for children of all ages.

Serves two:

 

• 2 green and 2 red peppers with flat bottoms
• olive oil
• 4 tbsp. chopped onion
• 100 g coarsely chopped walnuts
• 2 ripe tomatoes
• parsley
• sage leaves
• black pepper, salt
• 1 tin/jar white beans, drained weight approx. 250 g
• mint leaves
• dill greens
• paprika powder
• 4 tbsp. sauerkraut

 

Garnish:

• sprigs of:
• parsley, sage,
• mint and dill

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My version of an Eastern Orthodox fasting dish, which is popular in Lovech on the Ossum River. Devout believers are allowed to eat these Pulneny Piperky in the first half of the week before Easter. After that, they fast completely in the last three days before Easter.

How did the pepper become such a popular ingredient in the Balkans? Because of the Turkish rule. It was not for nothing that the pepper was called Heidenpfeffer in the Habsburg period. Turks were gourmets. The first snobbish Haute Cuisine of Europe can be found with the Romans, the second originated at the court of the Ottoman rulers in Istanbul with the well-known result of an enormous interest in new snacks. In Turkey, people were therefore very early in incorporating American crops. The Ottoman Empire bordered the Iberian Peninsula at the time that Columbus discovered America and so the fruits from that distant land were imported early on via the ports of Spain. And with high-ranking people spread throughout the empire.

For two:

Cheese:

• 225 g halloumi
• olive oil

Leek and pilaf:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 250 g cleaned leek, thickly sliced
• 100 g bulgur
• 300 ml tomato juice
• salt, pepper
• spearmint

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You can visit museums to learn about the history of a country, but you can also sit down for a meal. Take Cyprus, already speaking Greek in the Bronze Age, later indebted to Assyria, Egypt and Persia. All this before the Ottomans took the island in 1571. After their flirtation with the Nazis, they had to give it up again under English rule, but have occupied a third of Cyprus since 1974.

The pourgouri pilaff is Turkish. And Amaranth Sitas writes in Kopiaste (1983) prassa (leek)? that’s what the English eat. The halloumi, on the other hand, is Cypriot: a folded rectangle of sheep/goat cheese, which has been in brine for 40 days. Can be kept for a year without refrigeration. The name is a point of contention.  Charles Perry (The Oxford Companion to Food) sees it as Coptic ialom, but I follow an Ugarit expert (Ugarit is an ancient site in Syria): the origin is halab (milk/cheese: m and b are interchangeable). Halloum is also a product of Syria and Lebanon.