Why do they call it a Dutch treat when a couple share the cost of a meal? I've often wondered, but never knew. The only Dutch treat I'm aware of is from my childhood. I grew up in Scarborough which back in the mid 50s, long before amalgamation, was on the outskirts of Toronto. I lived on a street of strawberry boxes, a term used to describe the size of the houses. Two doors down lived my best friend, Jeff. Jeff and I spent a lot of time together, mostly at his place. Jeff's mom was Dutch and very hot. And she had some charming Dutch expressions when she got angry with us. Now, since I don't speak or understand Dutch I can only repeat what I thought I heard. One expression sounded like "hot for dick a ma" and the other I could have sworn she said "peein' in the sink". But I digress.
Since I spent a lot of time at Jeff's it only made sense that I often ate there. And here comes the Dutch treat. Jeff's mom introduced me to a number of great Dutch delicacies. For breakfast she made this wonderful concoction made up of cocoa powder, icing sugar and sugar. The idea was to spread it on hot, buttered toast. Mmmm, like a chocolate bar on toast.
But that was nothing. For lunch we had hagelslag sandwiches. Silly me, back then I heard "ha hoe slaw". Anyway, hagelslag is known in English as chocolate hail. You sprinkle this stuff on buttered bread (the butter holds the chocolate particles in place) top off with another piece of buttered bread and eat.
And on those special occasions we had sandwiches made with Vruchten Hagel, Dutch for fruit hail. Fruit hail is small bits of coloured sugar, with flavour added to make them look like little candies. It was a little crunchier than the chocolate hail.
See, I'm not making this stuff up!
Imagine, chocolate, sugar and more sugar. Boy was my dentist happy. My parents not so much because my dentist discovered I had seventeen cavities. I think he's the guy that first uttered the phrase "drill, baby, drill'.
Needless to say that brought to a quick conclusion my Dutch treat!
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p.s. mooi means beautiful, OK, good, great... you get the picture.
I still treat myself to an occasional choclate hail sandwich.