Of Balkenbrij and Hare’s Blood, or: As Long as It’s Cozy…
Lotje Deelman was editor-in-chief of ELLE Eten, has been working for Allerhande for almost 15 years and worked behind the scenes on television programmes such as MasterChef, Worsten van Babel On Tour and De Nieuwe Lekkerbek. She ate pig’s trotters with Anthony Bourdain and flirted with Gordon Ramsay in his Aston Martin. Lotje is the (co-)author of more than ten cookbooks and, in her kitchen in the Drenthe countryside, is never too reluctant to set something on fire. On FavorFlav, Lotje shares what occupies her mind every week. This time: the ever-so-cozy Christmas celebration.
As a child, I suffered a few serious Christmas traumas that I never fully recovered from. I think the deepest wound was inflicted by my grandmother’s bloody hare pepper on Christmas Day, closely followed by her balkenbrij after midnight mass. When I close my eyes, I can taste it. Cardboard, congealed fat, a gaping void where salt should have been, half-fried in insipid, lukewarm margarine…
Every Christmas, we ate at my grandmother’s house. She was a fantastic grandmother, but possessed a few qualities that made her wholly unsuitable for preparing Christmas dinner. Or, to be honest, any meal. She was above all extremely impatient. That may be a character trait you accept from a brilliant French chef on Chef’s Table, but it works out less well in a grandmother in the kitchen.
Blood
The potatoes were invariably burnt, the Brussels sprouts far too well done, the cranberries incredibly sour, and the vanilla sauce accompanying the soggy plum pudding was filled with countless floury lumps. But the worst was the hare pepper. Something involving fresh blood, hanging and marinating, the order, proportions and timing of which had been completely lost long before I was born.
Punk Panther Leggings
Why me, I often thought. Born into the wrong family. What I did find perfectly natural, though, was that it was always very convivial. My grandmother had zero stress about Christmas dinner. My grandmother didn’t see a burnt potato as a problem, and a lumpy sauce as perfectly ordinary. My grandmother was happy that we were there. And she thought it was lovely that, as an unbelieving grandchild in my punk panther leggings, I went with her to midnight mass. What I then dismissed as culinary barbarism and indifference, I now see as wisdom. My grandmother understood what almost everyone forgets at Christmas (and, for that matter, often between Christmases too): that when it’s convivial, the rest actually doesn’t matter anymore.
Jonnie
Christmas dinner already comes with a whole host of ingredients that make things difficult. Poorly brought-up nieces and nephews with the latest food allergies, a brother-in-law who ate at De Librije with office colleagues and has thought he’s a bit of Jonnie ever since, a ridiculous dress code… So why on earth make things extra difficult for yourself? Why suddenly go insanely overboard with eleven courses, sous-vide cooking, or try to save the world (far too late) with a vegan menu (so no honey either, okay? Not even in dessert!)? Save yourself first.
What everyone remembers about Christmas dinner is whether it was convivial. That you were fun that evening, relaxed and chill. And perhaps even how cool you looked (in my case, anyway), or maybe how funny your jokes were. But never whether the viognier grapes were biodynamic, or whether the main course recipe came from that Peruvian Michelin-starred chef. Or even whether the cranberries were on the sour side.
Except if you’re me, of course…
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