There are many exciting things to say about Dutch food. To create a starting point, this page informs you about the major Dutch eating habits. It will be followed soon by pages about specific Dutch treats, like hagelslag, stroopwafels and hutspot. Curious? read on then.

Dutch meals

The Dutch kitchen has emerged from a relatively simple kitchen to an internationally oriented kitchen. This should not be surprising. Holland is a trade country and especially after the sixties of the last century many immigrants enriched our kitchen. Also the Dutch can afford holidays abroad, which helps a lot to get to know other styles of cooking.

Dutch breakfast can be anything between a cup of coffee, porridge, yoghurt, and bread with butter, jam, meat, cheese (yes the famous Dutch cheese). We drink milk, coffee or tea with it. Sometimes orange juice and fruits. 

Lunch normally consists of bread, butter, meat, cheese, jam, milk, coffee, tea etcetera. So hot meals are not very common. Sometimes soup will be served. In pubs and restaurants you can in most cases buy a simple or luxury sandwich. Also they will serve half warm meals. Some examples:

• Uitsmijter: bread with 2-3 fried eggs and bacon.
• Tosti: fried bread with cheese and bacon (crocque monsieur)
• Broodje kroket: bread with a fried ball consisting of flour and some meat (delicious!) 

Dutch tend to get hungry at six pm. So dinner is relatively early. You should take that into account if you want to eat in a restaurant. Most people will arrive between 6 and 8 pm. If you want to eat later, you should inform in advance till what time the kitchen will be open.

As said the Dutch kitchen has an international orientation. Traditional ingredients are boiled potatoes, a small peace of meat or fish and some vegetables, mostly boiled. Now you may get anything, Itallian pizzas and pastas, chinese food, Indonesian Nassi Goreng, mexican dishes, Spanish paella etcetera.

This also is reflected in the assortment of restaurants. I will write about that on a separate page.

Tip:

If you like to tase traditional Dutch food with a Dutch family at home, try Homefoodholland. You can register on this site, express your wishes and they will try to find a Dutch (amateur) cook to prepare a real Dutch meal for you.