January 20, 2014

Dutch have best food in the world, Oxfam says

Filed under: Food & Drink,Health by Branko Collin @ 9:34 am

bitterballen-wikipedia-user-takeaway-pdIf you want to taste the best food in the world, look no further than the Netherlands, a new report claims.

There is a snag (isn’t there always?). The report was written by international aid organisation and poverty fighters Oxfam and they did not look at how good our restaurants are, nor did they look at what our dishes taste. As an organisation that tries to combat hunger among other things, their goal was to determine in which country (from a list of 125) citizens had the best access to “plentiful, nutritious, healthy and affordable” food.

The core questions Oxfam looked at were whether people had enough to eat, food was affordable, diets were diverse, people had access to both clean and safe water and how unhealthy people ate.

Dutchnews writes: “European countries occupy the entire top 20 bar one – Australia ties in 8th place—while the US, Japan, New Zealand, Brazil and Canada all fall outside. African countries occupy all the bottom 30 places in the table except for four—Laos, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India.”

Der Spiegel thinks the top ranking for the Netherlands is hilarious: “specialities like bitterballen, fried breadcrumbed balls containing a ragout, will excite neither gourmets nor advocates of healthy living.” (Bitterballen are small, round krokets that are served as bar snacks, usually with mustard).

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(Photo by Wikimedia Commons user Takeaway, some rights reserved)

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September 15, 2012

Saturday shorts: phone book dies, Dobben croquette disappears, other free market failures

Filed under: Food & Drink,General,Health by Branko Collin @ 12:51 pm

De Telefoongids to fire hundreds of employees

The phone book company that is trying to silence Alexander Klöpping is planning to fire 30% of its 800 employees, Z24 reports.

According to European Directories, the ‘restructuring’ is necessary for a print-to-online transition. The company has also declared that it plans to continue distribution of its paper phone book, despite opposition of Dutch parliament, amongst others.

Klöpping had registered the domain sterftelefoongidssterf.nl (‘die, phone book, die’), which he redirected to the presumed cancellation page of the phone book.

Famous croquette to disappear from supermarket shelves because of anti-monopoly rules

Snack producer Royaan can no longer use its famous brand Van Dobben in supermarkets if it wants to continue its merger with Ad van Geloven (of amongst other the Mora brand).

The Dutch anti-monopoly agency NMa has determined that Royaan must license the brand for supermarket use to another manufacturer during a period of six years according to NOS. After that the brand must be discontinued. The brand may still be used in snack bars; according to NMa there are still enough players in that market to keep it healthy. The intended merger of the snack giants was announced in November 2011.

Krokets or croquettes are a Dutch snack that consists of ragout deep-fried in a breadcrumb jacket.

Experiment with dental free market must be stopped

A recent, nationwide experiment in which dentists could determine their own rates must be stopped the court in The Hague said last Wednesday.

According to Z24, dentists’ rates had risen 6% since the start of the experiment. When Dutch parliament indicated in July it wanted to have the experiment stopped, the association for dentists sued the caretaker minister for public health, but lost. The experiment started in January of this year and was to run for three years.

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May 29, 2007

Mobile junkfood as art in Almere

Filed under: Food & Drink,Weird by Orangemaster @ 5:22 pm
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Artist Tilmann Meyer-Faje of Almere, Flevoland has started a ‘kroket’ art project and has been riding through the Stedenwijk Noord neighbourhood in a mobile kroket car he made himself. Once the artist found out that krokets had a rich past, he started collecting kroket recipes from neighbourhood residents. Besides collecting recipes and selling krokets, Tilmann also collected kroket stories. The kroket project will end on 7 July.

Some people keep arguing that krokets are not as junky as they used to be, but that does not mean they are healthy. And if anyone wants to catch the kroket car and taste sutff, here is the schedule.

(Link: vleesmagazine.nl)

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April 25, 2007

Dutch junk food has royal origins

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 8:56 am
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The ‘kroket’ (‘croquet’ of ‘croquette’, yes it’s a French word) actually has royal beginnings, according to top Dutch food critic Johannes van Dam in ‘Het volkomen krokettenboek’ (roughly ‘The comprehensive kroket book’), which will be published this fall. “It is nonsense to say that the kroket is made of meat leftovers,” Van Dam explains. According to his research, the recipe is from 1691 attributed to French chef Francois Massialot who made krokets out of delicacies such as truffles, mushrooms and cream cheese for King Louis XIV.

(Link: vleesmagazine.nl)

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