Dutch Foodways
Courtesy of The New York Public Library
In the seventeenth century the Dutch founded the East and West India Companies. They began importing spices from colonial holdings in the East Indies. In general Dutch Foodways for commoners in the Netherlands consisted of pancakes, waffles, various sorts of salted or smoked meat or fish with vegetables. Salt cod, herring and or dried cod represented mainstays on a noonday table. Christian foodways in the Netherlands insured that all classes regularly ate herring and dried cod, particularly on religious fast and abstinence days. But on non-fast days, eating fresh water fish like eel, carp, pike, and bream served as symbols of affluence specially one prepared with imported spices.
