2015 Sijs Netherlands Oxford Companion to Sugar And
Netherlands • 473 the company has repeatedly faced controversy. In addi- opted these delicacies as cookies, waffles, and crullers. tion to criticism surrounding nutrition-based health Elsewhere, Dutch names for various types of pastry issues, including the undeclared use of GMO prod- were taken over as well. For example, the name krake- ucts, Nestlé has been accused of price fixing, raising ling (cracknels) stuck in France and Indonesia, and infant mortality in third-world countries through wafel (waffle) in Germany, Scandinavia, and Russia. the promotion of its baby formula, commercializing The most popular Dutch feast day, celebrated since natural water supplies in the form of bottled water, tol- the seventeenth century, is the feast of St. Nicholas erating deforestation, and turning a blind eye to (Sinterklaas). This holiday was brought to the United child labor. States by the Dutch, where Sinterklaas developed into Santa Claus. Dutch children were (and are) Schwarz, Friedhelm. Nestlé: The Secrets of Food, Trust and given sweets like marzipan (marsepein), fondant Globalization. Toronto: Key Porter, 2006. (borstplaat), gingerbread men (speculaaspoppen), and Ursula Heinzelmann spiced biscuits (speculaasjes). See gingerbread; marzipan; and speculaas. St. Nicholas distributes spice nuts (pep ernoten), ginger nuts (kruidnoten), The Netherlands , situated along the North gingerbread (taaitaai), meringues (schuimpjes), and Sea opposite Great Britain, have always been strong confectionery (suikergoed). In the nineteenth cen- in trade. Sugar was imported in medieval times, tury, the custom of consuming pastry and chocolate mainly from Italy and Portugal. Products made with shaped in the form of letters—amandelletters , ban- sugar, such as suikerbrood (cinnamon bread, literally ketletters, boterletters, and chocoladeletters—was in- “sugar loaf”), were well liked but expensive; they troduced for St.
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