The Dutch and some of their quirky habits

Birthdays

The Toilet Birthday Calendar: In many Dutch homes, there is a birthday calendar hanging directly on the inside of the toilet door so guests and family never forget an important date (Not in my bathroom!)

Open curtains: Large, uncovered living room windows let passers-by peer right inside, as closed curtains are often joked to mean a family has something to hide. I have no curtains at all, just a roll-down screen in the bedroom that I never use. But then my only passers-by, or rather fliers-by, are birds.

The Birthday Circle Party: At birthday parties, guests often sit in a tight circle around the room, shake hands, and congratulate not just the birthday person, but all of their family members too (Never again for me!). Then coffee and cake are distributed. And after about half an hour, the host(ess) walks around asking if anyone would like a second cup.

I confess, congratulating everyone who is present at a birthday party is so not my thing. To me it is silly and I never do it. By now everyone knows why I don’t congratulate mothers, fathers, daughters, sisters, brothers, children, cousins, nieces and nephews on someone else’s birthday, and I don’t have to explain myself anymore.

Let’s not forget the Day of Birth celebration with: Beschuit met muisjes! That’s what the Dutch celebrate the birth of a newborn with. Beschuit with

multi-coloured sprinkles, pink and white or white and light blue. You can always be sure of the gender by the colour of the sprinkles!

AI tells me beschuit is best described as: a light, round, and very crumbly twice-baked rusk with a dry, crispy texture. So there!

Food & money quirks

Beschuit met hageslag: Bischuit with chocolate sprinkles. This used to be a typical breakfast for both kids and adults. My husband swore by it and so did his father, who lasted on this diet for 95 years! I think cereal may have taken over most of the breakfast culture in The Netherlands.

The Tikkie App & "Going Dutch": Splitting bills down to the exact cent is common, and friends will quickly, after their get-together, send a payment request via the Tikkie app after sharing a coffee or meal. Scrooge from A Christmas Carol may well be based on a Dutch gentleman. There was a joke doing the rounds in my days that the Dutch invented copper wire by fighting over a copper coin. Though some said it was the Scots.

Mashed Dinners: Traditional comfort foods like stamppot involve boiling and mashing vegetables and potatoes together on the plate. And eat that with a meatball or smoked sausage or rookworst. I like it and do it in winter with brussel sprouts. Though in Holland, boerenkool is often used (a kind of kale), or sauerkraut, or carrots and onions; that last one is also very nice. In Leiden they call this hutspot, a kind of mishmash. It was eaten in memory of Leiden getting rid of the Spaniards in October 1574. The legend says that a pot was found in the abandoned camp of the Spanish with some of this in it.

Lunch = bread: In many European countries, lunch is a serious, warm meal. But in the Netherlands? Around noon, people pull out their lunchboxes. The contents? A simple slice of bread with cheese, peanut butter, or—believe it or not—chocolate sprinkles (hagelslag). Though one of my stepsons was famous for his slice of bread with a leaf of lettuce on it with sugar sprinkled over it. Not typically Dutch, I can assure you. Even the Dutch think that is pretty quirky!

To be fair, these days, Dutch people are experimenting with more variety in their lunch meals, from salads to last night’s leftovers. But a sandwich will always be the go-to favourite. Nothing wrong with that, is there? At least it won’t make you sleepy, like a long hot lunch might do.

Ontbijtkoek: a kind of gingerbread or spiced cake. Ontbijt meaning breakfast. So this stuff was eaten at breakfast, usually with a little butter or margarine spread on it. There is a variety of this cake in some parts of the Netherlands called oudewijvenkoek, or old woman’s cake.

Drop

Last, but certainly not least…for me! One of the two vices left in my life (oh yes, I had many more), are chocolate and drop, or as the translation goes: liquorice.

There are many varieties, sweet, salty and in between. I am especially partial to a salty liquorice called zwart-witjes: little black and whites. They look like M&M's but are nothing like them, because they are very salty.

So I am really a sweet and salty person.