We’ve enjoyed our four cooking experiences with Traveling Spoon (Marrakech, Hong Kong, Barcelona, and Evora, Portugal) so I always look for another opportunity when possible.
Amsterdam offered three different options, but all with the same woman, Fusina Verloop. I thought a walking food tour would be more interested than making authentic Dutch pancakes or even cooking a Dutch meal.
No disrespect to the Dutch, but there’s an allure to Moroccan food, Hong Kong food, Spanish food, and Portuguese food. Honestly, even after being there for four nights, I can’t tell you what Dutch food actually is (other than french fries with mayonnaise), so instead of cooking, we chose to nosh our way across Amsterdam.
Well, it turned out to be even better than that. I had What’s App’d Fusina one of the blogs from a Traveling Spoon experience (Barcelona maybe?), so after seeing that we (Carol) likes to cook (I grill, she cooks, we’re a great team), she suggested we start by making an authentic Dutch pancake at her apartment.
We walked nearly a mile to get there. She lives in a spacious apartment right by the famed Skinny Bridge over the Amstel River. Yes, I was skeptical that the Skinny Bridge is famous, but then I saw multiple references to it as I prepped for the trip.
Honestly, though, I can’t figure out how the Skinny Bridge got its name. Because it doesn’t look particularly skinny to me, I asked Fusina how it earned the name. She said there are many stories, but no one knows what’s true. So it may forever be a mystery to me.
And that’s fine. One night I will bolt wide awake, wondering how the Skinny Bridge got its sobriquet, but then I will fall immediately back to sleep, realizing that sleep is more important than pondering that question.
With Fusina’s direction and encouragement, Carol made an apple pancake. Dutch pancakes are very thin – fruit like bananas or blueberries would be too heavy. Carol had to cut the apple slices very thinly. The only thing Carol wouldn’t do it toss the pancake up in the air to flip it. I also passed up the offer, knowing that the result would be a certain meeting of the pancake with the floor. So, Fusina flipped the pancake.
It was quite tasty, and it was neat to see the inside of a typical Amsterdam one bedroom. It was plenty spacious and nicely decorated.
After the pancake making, we headed outside. Fusina guided as we walked, talking both about food we would be eating and a bit about the history of Amsterdam. We had learned some of the same info from Bart eight days prior, but hearing the same thing twice makes it easier to remember.
Our first stop was at the neighborhood pastry shop, Patisserie Kuyt. Carol and I shared a large piece of Appleschnitt. I’m always a bit suspect of European pastry, as some can be kind of dry. This looked like it might be dry, but it was really good schnitt. We got that good schnitt in Amsterdam because Fusina knew who could hook us up.
(Editor: This IS about pastry, right? Blogger: Yeah. Why? Editor: Never mind.)
We walked from the pastry shop to a six day a week outdoor market that spans four long blocks. The four blocks aren’t one after the other. Instead, it is two blocks that cross two other blocks in a perpendicular fashion. It was very cool, with a wide variety of food stands and stands that sell stuff, whether it is clothing, shoes, knick-knacks, and bric-a-brac.
The food stands looked so good you could go from stand to stand and graze yourself a pretty fine meal.
Our next stop was for some Beef Croquettes, Dutch-style. Made by an immigrant in his food stand, they were delicious. It’s pretty amazing how so many immigrants around the world get their starts in their new country by food.
Then we stopped at an Amsterdam institution – the food stand proudly proclaiming it as Rudi’s Stroopwaffles, since 1978. In his 70s, Rudi was working that day (a Saturday) collecting the money. His son (name escapes me) was the star of the show, bantering with every customer, hamming it up. He also a patiently posed for photos as well.
The Stroopwaffles were quite tasty, although as my Grandmother (my beloved Nana) would say, my eyes were bigger than my stomach. Carol and I should have just split one instead of ordering two.
From there, it was on to the fish shop stop. Fusina asked if we wanted to try that most Dutch of all Dutch foods, herring. Well, we had tried it and loved it with Bart, but I wanted to try herring again to make sure it wasn’t just jet lag that made it taste better than it sounds. Besides, every time I say the word “herring,” I’m reminded of the great Modern Family TV show episode involving herrings, and that makes me laugh.
Well, it wasn’t just the jet lag, herring IS quite tasty.
From there, we went to the cheese monger. Fusina bought us the grass cheese, a cow cheese referring to the first cheeses of the spring after cows are eating fresh grass instead of hay. That was quite tasty as well.
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