Chef’s favorites with Meneer Wateetons: ‘Meat substitutes are my guilty pleasure’
Meneer Wateetons has already written books about sausage, drinks, smoking and rot. And recently about charcuterie too. Funny and informative, exactly as we’ve come to expect from the great man—and exactly how he answers our Chef’s favorites questions too:
Always in the fridge
“Three kinds of salted butter, and every time I forget that I still had another pack.”
Favorite drink
“Homemade kombucha, a little sour, not too sweet. I actually never drink it, but whenever I make it I keep thinking, ‘this is my favorite drink.’”
Favorite family recipe
“I don’t think you know my family.”
Favorite ingredient
“Miso. Everything tastes better with a teaspoon of miso. When we’re cooking and tasting in the evening and think ‘nothing is missing yet,’ the answer is always miso. Add a spoonful and your dish is finished. Whether it’s a soup, sauce or marinade.”
Favorite hangover meal
“Salt, pure and simple.”
Guilty pleasure
“Meat substitutes from De Vegetarische Slager.”
Wake me up for this
“Ice cream. At the moment I have homemade ice cream for breakfast every day. I can’t help it.”
Favorite kitchen tool
“My vacuum sealer, by far. Everything looks cool when vacuum-sealed, it prevents spoilage, is perfect for portioning, and you can use it for marinating and curing. Buy one blindly.”
Favorite recipe from Over Charcuterie
“The dried ham. That’s the sultan of charcuterie. It belongs alongside building a house, having a child and repairing your car. In no particular order.”
Strangest dish I’ve ever eaten (and is it worth repeating?)
“Every year, a few times, I go to Sweden with a group of heroes for a long weekend of doing cool adventurous things (Wateetons’ wild weekend). We also eat surströmming there. Suddenly they’re no longer heroes. I can’t understand that there are people who eat it for fun. The stench that comes out of the can when you open it is impossible to describe.”
Favorite restaurant
“McDonald’s. What should you order? The McFlurry.”
Favorite bar
“The days when I frequented bars are far behind me. I never really did it, actually. I always ostentatiously drank Chocomel with my straight-edge friends.”
Favorite sandwich (and where to get it)
“I always go to my butcher De Wit in Amsterdam-Oost at exactly around lunchtime. Then, by coincidence, he always just happens to offer me a sandwich. With ossenworst. Smoked, of course.”
Never again
“See surströmming.”
When I don’t feel like cooking, I
“Just make ice cream again in the evening.”
Favorite cookbook, food series and/or food podcast
“May I mention here that I absolutely hate Chef’s Table? I do enjoy listening to the new food podcast Smaakmakers. Modernist Cuisine is my favorite cookbook series. Then you definitely won’t have any money left for a Netflix subscription.”
Photo: Ingrid Hofstra
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