ASIANOVERLAND.NET KATHMANDU TO LONDON  DAY 163/75: AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND

1 December, 1980

A canal tour of Amsterdam is a great way to view the city, and far better than my solo tour yesterday. In the early part of the 17th century, a comprehensive canal plan was put together, calling for four main, concentric half-circles of canals with their ends resting on the IJ Bay. Known as the "grachtengordel", three of the canals are mostly  residential (Herengracht or ‘’Patricians' Canal’’; Keizersgracht or ‘’Emperor's Canal’’; and Prinsengracht or ‘’Prince's Canal’’), and a fourth, outer canal, the Singelgracht, for defense and water management. The plan also envisaged interconnecting canals along radii; a set of parallel canals in the Jordaan quarter, primarily for the transportation of goods, for example, beer!!!!; and more than one hundred bridges (1662 map of Amsterdam’s canals pictured). The defensive purpose of the Nassau/Stadhouderskade was served by moat and earthen dikes, with gates at transit points.

Construction proceeded from west to east, across the breadth of the layout, like a gigantic windshield wiper as the historian Geert Mak calls it. Construction of the north-western sector was started in 1613 and was finished around 1625. After 1664, building in the southern sector was started.

We also visit a clog factory, to see one of the classical Dutch icons being hand-made. The origin of wooden footwear in Europe is not precisely known, but  Celtic and Germanic peoples used some sort of wooden foot covering. Wooden footwear often ended up as firewood and, because of its nature, wood rots away in the long run, so archeological evidence of old clogs is rare. The oldest surviving wooden footwear in Europe is found in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and dates from 1230. They look very similar to the wooden clogs that are still worn in The Netherlands today.

Our national meal tonight is Rijsttafel , a Dutch word that literally translates to "rice table", an Indonesian elaborate meal adapted by the Dutch following nasi padang from the Padang region of West Sumatra. It consists of many dishes served in small portions, accompanied by rice prepared in several different ways. Popular side dishes include egg rolls, sambals, satay, fish, fruit, vegetables, pickles, and nuts. In most areas where it is served, such as the Netherlands, it is known under its Dutch name.

The rijsttafel was created to provide a festive banquet that represents the multi-ethnic nature of the Indonesian archipelago. Dishes were assembled from many regions of Indonesia, where many different cuisines exist, often determined by ethnicity and culture of the particular island or island group — from Javanese favourites sateh, tempeh and seroendeng; to vegetarian cuisine gado-gado and lodeh with sambal lalab from Batavia and Preanger; spicy rendang and gulai curry from the Minangkabau region in Sumatra; to East Indies ubiquitous dishes nasi goreng, soto ayam, and kroepoek crackers.

Although the dishes served are undoubtedly Indonesian, the rijsttafel’s origins were colonial from Indonesia, formerly a Dutch colony. Corrie's great uncle on her mother’s side, Pieter de Carpentier, at that time the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, was the first Dutch Governor of Batavia, and sent the Duyft and Arnhem south  in 1623, where they discovered “New Holland”, named the Gulf of Carpentaria after Corrie’s great uncle, and named Arnhem land after the Arnhem.

The Dutch introduced the rice table to Holland not only so they could enjoy a wide array of dishes at a single sitting but also to impress visitors with the exotic abundance of their colony. Rijsttafels strive to feature an array of not only flavours, colours and degrees of spiciness, but also textures, including crispy, chewy, slippery, soft, hard, velvety, gelatinous, and runny.

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