Did you know this about the frikandel?!
Hooray! The frikandel is celebrating its birthday! At sixty years old, you could almost call it an old bastard, but the Netherlands’ most popular snack deserves a little more respect. Here are some facts about our birthday boy.
Story goes that the frikandel was invented by Dordrecht butcher’s apprentice Gerrit de Vries in 1954 and perfected five years later by Jan Bekkers of snack factory Beckers. The ingredients have been adjusted somewhat over the years (intestines and udders were replaced by mechanically separated chicken meat), but otherwise it remains a stroke of genius (production: 1 million frikandellen per day!) to season and deep-fry finely minced meat (scraps).
Around the world 2.5 times
Together, we eat an average of 37 frikandellen per year. That makes it the most popular snack in the Netherlands. Of all fried snacks eaten, 30% are frikandellen. To keep up with this love of frikandellen, around 600 million frikandellen are produced in the Netherlands every year. That’s no small potatoes – laid end to end, that amounts to a length of 108,000 kilometres, or 2.5 times the circumference of the Earth!
Knocked the kroket off its throne
The frikandel hasn’t always been the most popular snack in the Netherlands. Until around 1996, the kroket was the best-selling snack in the Netherlands. By now, the frikandel has comfortably overtaken its crispy competitor; we eat ‘only’ 300 million of those per year.
9,400 calories
The world record for eating frikandellen in one hour is held by Sjonnie Noordeinde. In 2005, he ate 47 frikandellen within one hour. That’s no fewer than 9,400 calories! Who’s up for the challenge?
Vegetarian version
And now even vegetarians no longer have to miss out on a frikandel. Beckers launched a vegetarian version that is indistinguishable from the real thing. Mora naturally couldn’t stay behind, so it teamed up with De Vegetarische Slager. And so the frikandel continues to delight us. Hip hip hooray!
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