Food of the Dutch

Simple and nutritious, that is how the Dutch cuisine is usually labeled. Since time immemorial the Dutch approach to their daily bread is rather pragmatic. Hotchpotch with smoked sausage, cheese sandwich, raw herring but also Nasi, vegetable fried rice with pork originally from indonesia. These dishes are timeless, but how do they make their way to the Dutch peoples' plates these days? A look into the Dutch kitchen, commisioned by photo-agency Hollandse Hoogte.
Wim Klerkx, 2006-2007.

A crewmember of the Wiron6 connects a fish-pump to the fishing-net. The catch is pumped directly into the hold. There, the herring will be processed directly or frozen.

The net with tons of herring is placed behind the Wiron6 to be pumped into the hold of the ship. Gannets dive for the herring that escapes through the mesh.

The cook of the Wiron6 cuts open the first herring of the season to remove its intestines. Herring caught in the right season is very fat and can be conserved by removing its guts and keeping it in salt. It gives dutch herring its distinctive taste. Traditionally large sums are offered for the first keg of new herring.

Since several generations Dutch herring-stall Floor sells fish on the beach of Zandvoort, 4 seasons a year.

In the UNOX factory an employee mixes the herbs for a day-production of smoked sausage.

A mix of minced meat, herbs and other additives wrapped in a liquified skin is led through a bath where an artificial smoke-flavor is added before the sausage is cooked.

Technicians repair a production-line for sausages at the UNOX factory.

Employees watch the meat-mills that mince the meat of different parts of beef and pork for several different meat-products.

Every morning a team tests the quality of UNOX products of the last day on qualities like taste, juiciness etcetera.

At UNOX the renowned HEMA smoked sausage is also produced. These have a skin of real pork-gut and are smoked on shreds of beech-wood.

Tomatoes are cultivated on rockwool in a greenhouse. Nutrients and artificial light is controlled centrally. Cultivating tomatoes in a greenhouse like this one takes 1 man-hour of labour per square meter per year.

Company bicycle in a 10ha greenhouse with tomato-cultivation.

The greenhouse's cantine.

For a few hundred soldiers doing a joint exercise, hotchpot is made in field-kitchen of the Dutch army.

Harvesting potatoes in Zeeland, a province in the South-West of the Netherlands. With a rented machine 200 tons of potatoes are harvested in 10 days.

Storage of the new potato harvest.

Potato-researcher Vivianne Vleeshouwers from the University of Wageningen studies a field a classically ennobled potato varieties.

Leafs of some classically ennobled potato-plants, infected with the potato-disease. At the University of Wageningen a permanent group of researchers is working on an improved consumption-potato variety that can withstand the potato-disease Phytophthora infestans.

Ennobled potato varieties are grown under controlled circumstances. It is part of a large research-project for better consumption-potatoes at the University of Wageningen.

Genetically modified potato varieties in a greenhouse of the university of Wageningen.

During a joint military exercise with Dutch, Finnish and German special forces, hotchpot from a Dutch fieldkitchen is being served.

A cow from an organic cheese-maker, while she is waiting for her turn to be milked.

The cheesemaker owns its own cows. This is the milking-machine where they get milked twice a day.

Organic cheese-maker Gerrit takes samples from the milk of each cow for the mandatory daily check.

An employee cleans the vessel in which the milk will be turned to curd before it is pressed into the cheese-mould. Organic producers do not escape the economic necessity of automatization and scaling up.

The maturing-chamber of the organic cheesemaker. The cheese from this producer is being sold at organic markets throughout the Netherlands.

A Polish season-labourer plucks appeals in 'de Betuwe', the fruit-region of the Netherlands.

Polish seasonal laborers bring in the apple-harvest.

Rolls of bread move along an 'assembly line' of a traditional but fully automated bakery. The bakery delivers fresh bread to a chain of stores.

The fully automated bakery is a family-business that once started as a village-baker. In the bakery they try to come as close as possible to the bread-making process of the old days.

Breadrolls roll towards the packaging-department.

A 'nasi' snack from the wall, at a railway-station. Nasi is an Indonesian variety of fried rice with pork that has practically become a national dish.

Rice from Thailand is sucked straight from the boat into the factory. At the company Sillevold in Papendrecht, close to the harbor of Rotterdam, a large part of rice consumed in the Netherlands is imported and processed.

Once inside the company, a fully automated production line peels and grind the rice and check each grain for spots. At the end of the line the rice is packaged in the 1 kilo bags that the consumer can find in the supermarket.

Rice from India arrives in a container and is directly poured into a silo for further processing.

Dried vegetables and herbs are put into bags to be sold as 'Nasi-mix' at the Conimex-factory, a company specialized in products for home cooking of Indonesian food.

The machine where ingredients like starch and salt are mixed for the Conimex home-cooking mixes.