by Alice Rush
I MADE pannenkoeken for breakfast on Sunday this week. I found a recipe that seems to get the consistency right, and I added raisins because my husband likes that. I’m okay with the raisins, but I’m fine without as well. I’ve never tried to make a bacon pannenkoek. My taste tends away from savory, but I’m not against it prepared correctly by someone who knows their stuff in Holland.
Breakfast is just about my favorite meal. It doesn’t even have to involve as much trouble as pannenkoek/pancakes/poffertjes or waffles or French toast. I can be happy with a breakfast of plain toast and jam. My only request with my first morning meal is that there must be something sweet involved. Bacon and eggs or an omelet is great as long as I can have a piece of toast with jam, or a small sweet muffin, or YUM a small cinnamon roll! A good cinnamon roll has to be big though, (think of Cinnabon if you’ve ever been to one), so it is filling all by itself! In the fall I love to make pumpkin scones with a sugar glaze on top, also very filling!
Breakfast in the Netherlands is different altogether for me, even though there is sweetness involved. While I love vlokjes or hagelslag on bread, it still strikes me as worse than jam for health. Ultimately it’s probably not, especially since most people living in Holland are more active than the average American. In my thinking though, at least a redeeming, so-called healthy, quality of jam is that it has fruit along with its tons of sugar, right?
I make an attempt to eat healthy. Sometimes that is all it is, just an attempt, but I try. (I put pumpkin, a vegetable, in the scones!) So on the healthier side, when visiting overseas, I like having sliced ham and cheese (protein and dairy) with my bread in the morning, a breakfast boterham is lovely. Somewhat similarly, in the States we make egg sandwiches with ham, bacon or sausage. I don’t see those too much in Holland, except once in a bagel restaurant.
THE DUTCH have a fine assortment of breakfast cereals much like the United States. A bowl of cereal was standard weekday breakfast for me growing up. My mother was a stickler for non-sugary cereals though. While kids at school were raving about Sugar Smacks and Captain Crunch, I was eating shredded wheat. I was fortunate to get Frosted Mini-Wheats sometimes and Life cereal, which had some sugar, but lighter than average kids cereals. Today I respect what my mom was trying to do with the healthier cereals. At the time though, I was really envious of those other kids. Sometimes I buy those cereals for myself now, a guilty pleasure.
Coffee is a breakfast standard in either country. (Maybe even any country?) My husband will enjoy a good Dutch coffee when we visit later this year. Although I love coffee too, I will not be able to include that with my breakfast beverages, or at all for that matter. I’ve been off caffeine since early April and it is making a difference for me and my minor upper digestive medical issue. So, I’ll bring my coffee substitute, a kind of mushroom tea that looks a bit like coffee. Make no mistake, it doesn’t taste like coffee at all, but it helps me get by at breakfast. It’s healthy, so at least I have that good start to my favorite meal!
* Alice is a Maine realtor and a licensed helicopter and fixed wing pilot. She first met her Dutch husband in Maryland in 2005, and married him four years later.
