Food in Belgium plays an imporant part
in Belgian culture. Belgium has one of the highest densities of
Michelin-starred restaurants in Europe, although many Belgians' top favourite
foods are also home-cooked comfort dishes and street-vendor snack foods.
Just as the country is divided linguistically, it's also
divided food-wise. Flemish cuisine has a strong Dutch influence, while
Wallonian cooking is very similar to French foods with lots of rich sauces.
Most dishes are based around meat or fish, and top Belgian desserts are often
rich pastries or decadent chocolates – and everything is usually washed down
with wine or the national drink beer.
This sweet-sour steak and ale stew (stoofvlees or stoverij)
has a great many variations, with families handing down their own recipes from
generation to generation. Most include beef, a rich dark beer, bread, onions,
salt, pepper, herbs (like bay and thyme) and spices. Other ingredients are
carrots, mushrooms, bacon, red wine, shallots – and even dark chocolate! A long
marinade and slow cooking are crucial for flavour and tender meat. It's usually
served with frites, boiled potatoes, noodles, salad or green veggies – and of
course, more beer.
Sole meunière
Belgium's classic fish dish is sole meunière, the latter
part of the name translates as ‘in the way of the miller's wife' – that is,
dipped in seasoned flour and then pan-fried in a small amount of butter. Lemon
juice and some chopped parsley are added to make a rich brown butter sauce. The
fish is served with potatoes: as frites, boiled or mashed.
Ham and endive gratin
You might not find this on the menu of a Michelin-starred
restaurant but gegratineerde witloof/chicon au gratin is a popular, comfort
dish served up in many Belgian homes. A Flemish speciality, endive (which the
Belgians call wifloof, chicon or ‘white gold', or some know as chicory), has a
distinctive, tangy flavour and is used in appetizers/starters, soups, salads
and main courses alike. Ham and endive gratin is a dish that combines this
leafy vegetable with a regional cheese and prime boiled ham, traditionally
served with mashed potato. Interestingly, all the endives sold in mainstream
shops in the US are imported from Belgium.
Filet Americain
Don't order this and expect a juicy steak to arrive on your
plate. Filet Americain is seasoned raw minced beef served cold, rather like the
French steak tartare. Various seasonings are added to the beef (which must be
very lean) to give it flavour: raw or pickled onion, egg yolk, Worcestershire
or Tabasco sauce, ketchup, mustard, parsley, capers, salt, pepper and oil. You
can eat it in two ways: spread on bread or toast (when it's called toast
kannibaal or ‘cannibal toast'), or as a main meal, accompanied by frites and
pickles. If you order it as a main course in a restaurant, it may be prepared
at your table so you can have it just how you like it.
Moules frites
About 30 million tons of moules frites are eaten every year
in Belgium (that's 3kg a person), in a season that runs from September to
February. The most common way to cook them is in white wine, shallots, parsley
and butter (la marinere) although other recipes replace the wine with Belgian
beer, add cream (la crème), or use a vegetable stock. Dispense with cutlery and
eat as the Belgians do – use an empty shell like a pair of tweezers to scoop
out the mussels.
The traditional accompaniment to mussels is frites (what
Brits call chips and Americans call French fries). According to historian Jo Gerard,
the Belgians invented frites, way back in 1781. Frites are thicker than French
fries and very crisp because, like traditional English chips, they're fried
twice. You can pick up a cornet de frites (frites in a cone-shaped card
container) from a mobile food stand known as frietkot (or fry shack). Frites
special come with fried onions, otherwise try them with mayonnaise, tartar or
béarnaise sauce or samourai, a spicy chilli mayonnaise.
Steak frites is almost on a par with moules frites, and if
you choose this in a restaurant you'll be able to select your cut (entrecote
means rib eye) and offered a choice of sauces – such as mushroom, pepper,
béarnaise or Roquefort – to accompany.
Stoemp
This is comfort food, pure and simple. Stoemp is a typical Brussels
dish made from mashed potatoes mixed up with other mashed vegetables. These
traditionally include endive, kale, onions, carrots, turnips, Brussels sprouts,
spinach and greens. Sometimes cream or milk is added to the mix. It's a bit
like the English ‘bubble and squeak' or American ‘hash'. Eat it on a grey
winter's evening with bacon, sausage, beef or some boudinblanc (fried sausage
made of pork without the blood) or noir (black sausage), and you'll soon feel
all is well with the world. If that's not to taste, try the Flemish white
sausage (witte pens/boudin blanc), made with milk for a softer flavour.
Paling in't groen
This traditional Flemish dish can be translated as ‘eels in
the green' and that's exactly what it is: eels in a very, very green sauce.
Fishermen used to catch the eels in the river Scheldt, between Dendermonde and
Antwerp, and then prepared the dish with whatever fresh herbs they found along
the river banks. Today, the sauce is made from a mix of herbs, which may
include chervil, sorrel, parsley, mint, watercress, basil and thyme, which must
be added at the very last minute in order to preserve their vibrant colour.
Enjoy this dish served up with frites or bread.
Gentse waterzooi
Gentse waterzooi is a soup-like stew. Waterzooi comes from
the old Flemish word zooien, meaning ‘to boil' and gentze shows that the soup
originates from the city of Ghent. It's traditionally made from fish such as
carp, pike, eel and bass – but these days more commonly these made with chicken
– as well as vegetables like carrots, leeks, potatoes, and then thickened with
eggs, cream and butter. It's usually served with toasted French bread to mop up
the soup.
Belgian meatballs
Boulettes are a great staple of Belgian home cooking on both
sides of the language divide, with plenty of variations found around the
country and usually served with frites or mashed potato. In Flanders, balletjes
are typically found covered in tomato sauce, or Frikadellen-style 'met
krieken', where the meatballs are fried in butter with Belgian cherry sauce.
South of Brussels boulets Liégeois are popular, served with a rich mixture of
beef stock, spices and sirop de Liege, a fruit syrup made from apples and
pears, similar to molasses, that gives a distinct sweet taste.
Crevette grise
This North Sea delicacy can be found all over Belgium and
some seafood restaurants will serve you a snack bowl of these crunchy
crustaceans. Gray shrimp, which despite their name and apperance have a sweet
and delicate flavour, are prepared in a number of ways; you can find tomate
crevette, fresh tomatoes stuffed with a prawn salad, croquettes of crevette
(garnaalkroket in Flemish) or eaten peeled as a snack with beer. This shrimps
were traditionally harvested all along the Belgian coast by fishermen on horseback,
and is still practised in the coastal village of Oostduinkerke and forms part
of UNESCO's list of intangible cultural humanity heritage.
Top Belgian desserts
Belgian desserts are more than just chocolate and waffles,
as you can see in our guide on top 10 Belgian desserts. A couple of Belgian
favourites, however, are waffles and La Dame Blanche.
Belgian waffles (gauffres) are internationally known, but in
Belgium there are two different types: the Brussels waffle and the Liège
waffle. The Brussels waffle is rectangular, golden brown on the outside, dusted
with powdered/icing sugar and then sometimes covered with syrup, slices of
fruit, chocolate spread and whipped cream – all of which is deemed a mite
inauthentic by waffle connoisseurs! The denser textured Liege waffle is square
and has burnt sugar on the outside. They are sold by street vendors and gourmet
restaurants alike, all over Belgium.
La Dame Blanche is another Belgian classic dessert, which
although simple is extremely delicious: vanilla ice cream topped with melted
chocolate sauce (and remember, the Belgian's make the world's best), fresh
whipped cream and maybe a cherry. It's the Belgian equivalent of a hot fudge
sundae and you'll find it on menus all over the country. It goes well with Belgian
Cherish Raspberry Lambic beer.
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