History
Traditionally the Dutch diet consisted of bread and herring. In the 18th century the potato (which had been brought from Peru to Europe by the Spanish in the 16th century) gained popularity, to become the staple food by 1800.
Historically Dutch cuisine was closely related to northern French cuisine, which is still visible in traditional Dutch restaurants and the Southern regional cuisine. In the course of the 15th century haute cuisine began to emerge, largely limited to the aristocracy, but from the 17th century onward these kinds of dishes became available to the wealthy citizens as well, often consisting of a rich variety of fruits, cheeses, meat, wine, and nuts.
The national cuisine however became greatly impoverished at the turn of the 20th century, when there was great poverty in the Netherlands. As mass education became available, a great number of girls were sent to a new school type, the Huishoudschool (housekeeping school), where young women were trained to become domestic servants and where lessons in cooking cheap and simple meals were a major part of the curriculum, often based on more traditional Dutch dishes, a process which has been slowly turned.
Read more about this topic: Dutch Cuisine
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“History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)