Netherlands street food

Netherlands: Poffertjes

Street Food Around the World

Netherlands

Poffertjes are a traditional Dutch batter treat. Resembling small, fluffy pancakes, they are made with yeast and buckwheat flour. Unlike American pancakes, they have a light, spongy texture.

Poffertjes aka mini Dutch pancakes are a simple yet delicious street food of Netherlands. Typically, poffertjes are sweet treat, served with powdered sugar and butter, and sometimes syruo or advocaat. However, there is also a savoury variant with gouda cheese. 

Typical Price: 10 for £2

Get it from: All over the Netherlands, but watch out for travelling street food van Pofferdikkie in Amsterdam, for a kitsch take on this traditional classic.

Potato Chips

Potato chips

Food invented around the world

America

Today potato chips are the most popular snack food in America and are devoured at a rate of 1.2 billion pounds annually, so it’s hard to believe that the snack food was created completely by accident.

The man who invented potato chips was George Crum, who was both African-American and Native American, and a chef employed as a chef at Moon Lake Lodge --an elegant resort in Saratoga Springs, New York. And getting complaints from a customer about thick, soggy fried potatoes, Crum wanted to teach the patron a lesson, so he sliced a new batch of potatoes as thin as he possibly could, and then fried them until they were hard and crunchy. Finally, to top them off, he added a generous heaping of salt. To Crum's surprise, the dish ended up being a hit with the patron and a new snack was born.

Indian Holi Festival

Holi festival of color: India

Festivals Around the world

INDIA

Holi is a Hindu spring festival celebrated in the India, also known as the "festival of colours". The festival signifies the victory of good over evil, the arrival of spring, end of winter. It is also celebrated as a thanksgiving for a good harvest. Every year it comes on the month of Phalguna, which falls somewhere between the end of February and the middle of March in the Hindu calendar. The first evening is known as Holika Dahan or Chhoti Holi and the following day as Holi, Rangwali Holi, Dhuleti, Dhulandi.

Holi celebrations start on the night before Holi with a Holika Dahan where people gather, perform religious rituals in front of the bonfire, and pray that their internal evil be destroyed the way Holika, the sister of the demon king Hiranyakashipu, was killed in the fire. The next morning is celebrated as Rangwali Holi – a free-for-all festival of colours, where people smear each other with colours and drench each other. Water guns and water-filled balloons are also used to play and colour each other. Anyone and everyone is fair game, friend or stranger, rich or poor, man or woman, children and elders. The frolic and fight with colours occurs in the open streets, open parks, outside temples and buildings. Groups carry drums and other musical instruments, go from place to place, sing and dance. People visit family, friends and foes to throw coloured powders on each other, laugh and gossip, then share Holi delicacies, food and drinks. In the evening, after sobering up, people dress up and visit friends and family and greet HAPPY HOLI!!