Our Man in the Provinces Sees Smokers
He ate out several times a week, always searching for the tastiest herring, most enjoyable wine, juiciest hamburger or best meat thermometer. But six months ago, journalist Marcel Langedijk swapped Amsterdam for the Provinces. Is it bearable there for a lover of the finer things in food and drink? This time: the provinces keep smoking stubbornly on.
I grew up in the days when smoking was still healthy. The days when there were glasses filled with cigars and cigarettes on the table at parties. The days when I was placed on the laps of uncles and aunts who smoked rolling tobacco without feeling guilty. The days when you could light up anywhere, from hospital to office and from train and car to restaurant. The days when we smoked en masse before, after and—well, we were already at it—during meals.
It’s astonishing how quickly that happened, the banishment of the cigarette. And rightly so, because it does, after all, give you a rattling death, despite the stories about that one ninety-year-old grandma who smokes six packs a day, is still alive and does a cartwheel every day. Of course, grandmas like that exist, but they’re the exception to a million-kilometre-long rule full of lung and cancer patients.
Yoga Sniffers
To keep things cheerful: we’re on the right track. At least, that’s how it felt when I still lived in Amsterdam. By then, the average smoker was being almost chased off every terrace there. Young people and older young people were mainly busy sculpting their gym bodies, drinking healthy juices and not eating meat. Smoking was something from the past there. Meanwhile, it was teeming with yoga sniffers, I know, but let’s try to tackle one addiction at a time.
I know there are still plenty of people smoking there in the city, but it’s much less visible than, say, ten years ago. Smoking is in the doghouse. Smoking is for losers. At least, that was the impression I got.
Then I moved to the provinces.
During the first week we lived there, my three-year-old daughter and I settled down on an almost empty terrace. Empty terraces were something we didn’t know in the big city, so we seized our chance and ordered an uitsmijter (me) and a peanut-butter sandwich (daughter). In the ten minutes we waited for our order and marvelled at the beautiful church square and the woman in Staphorst traditional dress who walked past rather grumpily (“Daddy, carnival!”), just as many other guests settled down on our terrace.
Mad Men
At first I suspected a prank, a Banana Split-style programme taking us for a ride, but the cameras and Frans Bauer failed to appear. It really happened: all ten people who had sat down on the terrace lit a cigarette. Independently of one another. Even the two middle-aged couples who had sat down on either side of us and apparently had no problem with a three-year-old sitting in their fumes.
I know it’s a free world, I’ve smoked myself once in a while, I know how much I enjoyed a cigarette après le dîner and I don’t begrudge anyone their cigarette, even if they’re sitting on a terrace and the government hasn’t banned it yet. But good Lord on a rocking horse; smoking next to a child? Without the slightest hint of shame? Are we in an episode of Mad Men?
Nostalgia, No Thanks
It turned out not to be a coincidence. There’s a lot of smoking in the provinces. Young people too. Especially young people. Sitting on their electric bikes, hanging around the shopping street, in playgrounds and on terraces. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this summer we barely sat outside at our local cafés and restaurants for that reason. The glasses of cigarettes I remembered from the past weren’t on the table, but it felt that way. And I love nostalgia, but only the healthy kind. Especially when I’m eating.
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