The topic of food is one of the prompts that shows up in the 52 Ancestors Challenge every year. This makes it a difficult topic to write about, since I covered it broadly in the first and second year I participated in the challenge. However, as Amy often reminds participants, the prompts are merely suggestions and we can interpret them as broadly as we want. Which I’ve done, writing about pets when the prompt was flowers, and vice versa!
With this week’s prompt, I’ve not stretched the topic as far as pets to flowers. Rather, I am looking at the favourite treats of my ancestors.
I’ll start with my mother’s maternal line. As I’ve often written about here, that branch of the family are Germans from Russia. One of their favourite treats is halva. It’s a confection that originated in Persia (now Iran) that spread throughout the Middle East and, later, throughout the Ottoman Empire. While halva was originally made with a variety of different ingredients, such as flour and dates, the traditional Turkish version is usually made with sesame seeds and most often sweetened with honey or sugar. You can find halva in many varieties. Halva with pistachios, chocolate, or vanilla is quite common.
Many German settlements in the Russian Empire were in what is now the Ukraine, which the Russians had taken from the Ottoman Turks in a series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries. While the German population was originally introduced to the Turkish version of halva, they most likely learned of the sweet treat from the local Jewish population that had been in Ukraine for centuries, including the time of Ottoman rule. However, the Germans soon modified the recipe using sunflowers, which are abundant in Ukraine and that are a symbol of that country. I’ve heard that many German-Russians prefer the sunflower variety, but I’ve never seen it. My grandmother and mother always bought the traditional Turkish version. While not a traditional Christmas food, that is the time of year my mother would most often buy it. My mother often spread it on toast, which is quite delicious.
Turning to my father’s side of the family, I’ll admit that Dutch cuisine is not world-famous for many good reasons. That said, there are many delicious treats that make up for it. One of my favourites, bitterballen, is commonly found as a bar snack. They are somewhat similar to croquettes, but are smaller and rounder. They are made of a mixture of minced beef, roux, onions, and seasonings, breaded, and fried. They’re addictive little snacks. There is a chain of cafes and coffee shops in the Netherlands called The Bulldog. In the 1990s, they had a location in Vancouver. I often went there for lunch with a friend and we always started with bitterballen.
The Dutch also have many sweet treats. Almond-based treats (including marzipan) and baked goods made with warm spices are quite popular. The one I can remember having ever since I was little is speculaas. They always contain ginger, along with spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, anise, allspice, and white pepper. With those flavours, they were a common Christmastime treat, but now it is common to enjoy them year-round. They are particularly good with coffee. While speculaas might have been obscure outside the Netherlands and its former colonies, they’ve always been relatively easy to find in Canada. I’ve also noticed them popping up on baking and cooking shows in recent years.
Another delicious treat that is also good with coffee are stroopwafels. They’re made up of thin waffle-like wafers with a thin layer of caramel sandwiched in the middle. (“Waffle”, by the way, is an English word of Dutch origin.) They originated in the city of Gouda as a means for bakers to repurpose crumbs and scraps. You can get them freshly made from street vendors in the Netherlands, as well as bakeries and cafes. The availability of stroopwafels in Canada seems to wax and wane, although they’re always available in Dutch specialty stores. They were also featured as the technical challenge during “Caramel Week” on Season Eight of The Great British Bake Off (airing as The Great British Baking Show in the United States and Canada). It’s common to place them on top of a hot cup of coffee, which warms and softens them. So delicious!
Finally, many people know that the Netherlands is famous for its chocolate. During Sinterklaas, a favourite treat is chocoladeletters (“chocolate letters”). Centuries ago they originated as baked goods, but are now almost exclusively made of chocolate. It is traditional to receive a chocolate letter of the initial of your first name. My great grandmother, Elizabeth Bakker, always included chocolate letters in the box of goodies she sent us every Christmas. When we were children, there was always an argument that some letters were bigger than others so they had more chocolate. The truth is, while the surface area of each letter might differ, they are manufactured in different thicknesses so that every letter contains the same amount. The other problem is finding letters that are uncommon initials for names in the Netherlands, although that is less of a problem than it used to be.
Chocolate letters are another item for which, outside the Netherlands, the availability seems to change over time. When I was a kid, they seemed to be available everywhere. Purdy’s made their own for a while, but I haven’t seen them there in a long time. In recent years, the only place I could find them were in Dutch stores. Even then, I could not find Droste letters – the absolute best ones, bar none – anywhere. You could only find the secondary brands. I once asked a vendor if Droste no longer shipped to Canada, and was told they were simply too expensive to carry. Luckily, a couple years ago I found Droste chocoladeletters in a Dutch store in Lethbridge.
Fortunately, chocolate letters seem to be getting easier to find again, as I saw them being sold in many mainstream supermarkets and shops last Christmas. I first noticed them showing up a couple years ago in a local independent grocery store that specializes in Asian foods and ingredients of all places. Plus, in our neighbourhood of Steveston, there is a chocolatier that makes them – in every letter!
A Deck of Ancestors 