Our Man in the Province Has Never Had It This Salty
He ate out several times a week, was always on the lookout for the tastiest herring, most fun wine, juiciest hamburger or best meat thermometer. But six months ago, journalist Marcel Langedijk traded Amsterdam for the Province. Is it bearable there for a lover of better food and drink? Absolutely, although they certainly don’t hold back on the salt.
I love salt. There, I’ve said it. Because these days, admitting that you like your food highly seasoned is practically culinary blasphemy. Salt is bad, apparently. According to the studies by various important people, it will kill you. Or at the very least give you rattling kidneys. And that’s not allowed. So after smoking, alcohol, dairy, meat, fish, carbohydrates and crystal meth, salt is also being eliminated as a flavour enhancer in this already difficult life.
At least, in the Randstad. There, even a Michelin-starred chef like Menno Post (five years at the helm of De Bokkedoorns (**), now at his own restaurant Olivijn) is taking to the barricades to keep the devilish salt out of the kitchen as much as possible. Which is his right and—which, to be honest—is considerably healthier.
A pinch of salt instead of crystal meth
But I do love salt. And I’ve already given up crystal meth, so against my better judgement I allow myself an occasional extra pinch. Or better yet, a few shavings of Maldon salt. On fresh vegetables from the grill pan, no less. Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked.
Salt, then, and my love of it. But you can overdo it. As they do here in the province. They don’t know Menno Post here, and low-salt food is for kidney patients and sick old people. With the exception of a few high-end restaurants, dishes here are generally brimming with salt. Recently, I left the mustard soup from an otherwise excellent 12 o’clock lunch* untouched because it contained not only fried bacon, but also 140 grams of salt. The accompanying bock beer couldn’t change that. Nor could the hastily summoned bottle of sparkling water.
And that’s no exception. In every establishment I’ve visited so far, each and every dish has been topped with wagonloads of salt.
Fries without with extra salt
Even for someone who loves salt, it’s striking how much the province hates bland food. More than that: the saltier, the better. I see it in my parents, who have now lived in the province for more than fifty years and invariably begin their meals by salting whatever is in front of them. Not only when they’ve made it themselves, but also when they’re eating in a restaurant—and always before they’ve tasted the dish. Even the already generously salted fries from the chip shop around the corner. Which they then eat without mayonnaise, because ‘that’s so bad for you’. If I say something about it—for I may love salt, but I love my parents even more—I invariably get the answer that they’ve always done it this way and have nevertheless made it to seventy. And that I’ll have to see if I can make it that far, because I spent decades living in cities full of lorries, scooters, cars, stress, noise pollution and Boeing jets flying overhead. There’s not much to say to that.
A container of schnitzels, anyone?
Slightly generalising, because I don’t know every establishment in the province, I can say after eight months of experience with the province’s hospitality industry that salt simply belongs to the province. Against all better judgement. Just like Big Portions, for that matter. Food is served here in gigantic quantities. Spareribs come by the kilo, fish by the sack, schnitzels by the container. And even when that doesn’t happen, guests are indeed asked whether they’re satisfied with the amount they’ve been served. During my days as a lifestyle reporter for what was then still a famous nudie magazine, I once interviewed Jonnie Boer, after which he offered me lunch at De Librije. In addition to the overwhelming dining experience, I can also still remember the chef’s down-to-earth question after the twelve courses: ‘Was it enough?’ I laughed; Jonnie didn’t. Because although he may handle salt and portions more cautiously than most of his hospitality colleagues, ultimately he too believes that food should first and foremost leave you feeling satisfied.
* Here I’d like to call for the immediate return of the 12 o’clock lunch to every hospitality establishment in the country, including the greasy bun filled with poor-quality Russian salad.
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