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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. Nicholas Day. were consumed especially during public holidays. Because of their expertise, Dutch confectioners were invited in 1514 to work at the court of Maximilian I, Cookies of All Sorts emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and in 1522 Over the course of the eighteenth century, the price at the court of Ferdinand I, archduke of Austria. See of sugar dropped still further, which made sweets court confectioners. more affordable for increasing numbers of people. The Dutch established trading relations with over- It became customary to fill pastry with almond paste, seas countries in the seventeenth century. In Surinam called banket. A fashion arose for serving coffee and and the islands of the Caribbean, in particular, they tea, sweetened with sugar and accompanied by developed their own sugar plantations. See planta- cookies or pastry, at home. In the nineteenth cen- tions, sugar. Raw sugar was refined in Amsterdam. tury a switch from cane sugar to industrially pro- Around 1660, Amsterdam boasted more than 50 re- duced, cheaper beet sugar took place, resulting in fineries, about as many as in the rest of Europe. Cane an increase in sweets consumption and the pro- sugar became an important export product. Although duction of all kinds of new products, each of which the price of sugar went down in the domestic market, had its own name. See sugar beet. From 1900 on, it remained a luxury item. Sugar and imported spices specialized factories were set up to manufacture a resulted in new kinds of pastry, such as gingerbread: wide assortment of cookies, including bastognekoeken, peperkoek, literally “pepper cake,” and kruidkoek, bitterkoekjes, eierkoeken, gevulde koeken, janhagel, “spice cake,” the predecessors of the typically Dutch jodenkoeken, lange vingers, makronen, mariakaakjes, honey cake (ontbijtkoek). See gingerbread. pindarotsjes, and roze koeken—each made with dis- tinct ingredients and methods. Public Holidays and Feast Days Seeing in the New Year traditionally entails pre- paring deep-fried doughnut balls (oliebollen), apple The Dutch added luster to public celebrations by turnovers (appelflappen), and apple fritters appel( - baking all manner of delicacies, and they took this beignets). Christmas festivities include eating almond custom with them when they fanned out to other pastry rolls (banketstaven), Christmas loaves (kerst- continents in the seventeenth century. On New Year’s broden, kerststollen), Christmas cookies (kerstkran- Eve, Dutch immigrants in the United States baked sjes), and turban-shaped cakes called tulbanden. See koekjes, wafels, and krulkoeken. The Americans ad- christmas. 474 • neuroscience Confectionery sweet dessert, which was given the Dutch name of toetje ([little] afters). Of the many possible offer- During the Middle Ages, children were given sugar ings, a typical selection might include lammetjespap balls on special occasions, but specialized types of or zoetepap (meal pap), griesmeelpudding (semolina sweets date only to the end of the eighteenth cen- pudding), havermoutpap (oatmeal porridge), karne- tury. The best known are bull’s eyes babbelaars( or melkspap (buttermilk mush),rijstepap (rice pud- toverballen), marshmallows (spekjes), dolly-mixture ding), and watergruwel (gruel). In the 1960s and (tumtum), and acid drops (zuurballen or zuurtjes). 1970s, all segments of the population got into the Fairground attractions include cinnamon sticks habit of ending dinner with a ready-made dairy des- (kaneelstokken), nougat (noga), cotton candy sui( - sert. The Dutch Dairy Board strongly promoted a kerspinnen), and sticks of rock sugar (zuurstokken). variety of dairy products like vla (custard), pudding, See fairs. A typical Dutch custom, known since and yogurt in various flavors, sold in cartons that the late eighteenth century, is to offer people rusks could be kept fresh in the fridge. Since then a multi- with aniseed comfits beschuit( met muisjes) on the tude of varieties of this typically Dutch dessert have birth of a child: blue ones for a boy and pink for a been produced, with continually changing names. girl. See comfit. Thanks to Dutch innovations in the eighteenth See also colonialism; confection; custard; and nineteenth centuries, chocolate became avail- doughnuts; fried dough; holiday sweets; able in the form of tablets, slabs, and bars. In the late nougat; pudding; and sugar refineries. eighteenth century, Caspar Flick’s Amsterdam choco- Burema, Lambertus. De voeding in Nederland van de late factory began manufacturing chocolates that are Middeleeuwen tot de twintigste eeuw. Assen, The still called flikjes. In 1828 the Dutchman Casparus Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1953. van Houten Sr. took out a patent for an inexpensive Jobse-van Putten, Jozien.Eenvoudig maar voedzaam: way to separate the fat from cocoa beans, which Cultuurgeschiedenis van de dagelijkse maaltijd in boosted the production of chocolate products. See Nederland. Amsterdam: SUN, 1995. Van der Sijs, Nicoline. Chronologisch woordenboek van het cocoa and van houten, coenraad johannes. Nederlands: De ouderdom en herkomst van onze In 1907 the Dutch firm of Kwatta produced the first woorden en betekenissen. Amsterdam: Veen, 2001. wrapped chocolate bar, which was intended for the Van der Sijs, Nicoline. Cookies, Coleslaw, and Stoops: The army. The best-known names of chocolate bars were Influence of Dutch on the North American Languages. Kwatta and Koetjesreep, literally “cow-bar,” a kind of Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009. Van Otterloo, Anneke H.Eten en eetlust in Nederland imitation chocolate bar with a cow on the wrapper. (1840–1990): Een historisch-sociologische studie. These Dutch products have now been replaced by Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1990. international brands like Mars, Snickers, and M&M’s. But Dutch youngsters still relish a bread topping Nicoline van der Sijs; translated by Frits Beukema called hagelslag, chocolate sprinkles, which dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century. See neuroscience , the study of the human nervous sprinkles. system, offers a number of intriguing insights into the A typical Dutch product is licorice (drop), a deli- perception of sweetness. Sweetness is one of the most cacy in the Netherlands since the eighteenth century. important sensory signals for our brain to detect, typ- The Netherlands is currently the largest licorice- ically signaling calories, which are essential for energy producing nation in the European Union. There is a and growth. While sweetness can be detected (or wide selection of sweet and salty types, and a corre- sensed) only by a certain class of taste buds in the oral sponding variety of names, mostly based on the taste, cavity (concentrated primarily on the tongue), the such as anijsdrop and laurierdrop (anisette and bay- neuroscience evidence demonstrates just how im- leaf flavored), or on the form, such asmuntdrop and portant the integration of cues from every one of our veterdrop (coin or shoestring-shaped). See licorice. senses is to the perception of how sweet something tastes (to us) and also how much we happen to like Desserts the experience. See sweetness preference. Taste buds sensitive to sweetness can be found all In the beginning of the nineteenth century, people over the tongue but tend to be concentrated around began to mark the end of a meal by eating a simple the tip. The taste buds transmit information to the .

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