Our daily bread

The English sure know how to market pumpernickel!
Clearly the English girl just totally fell in love with the
German guy because she so admires his pumpernickel.

Dutch people, when going abroad, are infamous for taking sacks of potatoes, kilos of drop, bags of coffee and complete Gouda cheeses with them, because obviously the foreign supermarkets cannot be trusted to sell the familiar brands, and anyway they rob you blind over there. In fact, Elise and I are not entirely innocent of this tendency: when we lived in Germany, we would always stock up on bread and cheese whenever we visited the Netherlands.

For the period of my sabbatical I was resolved to make do with whatever I could find in the local shops, and since the local shop I have frequented, Morrisons, should rather be called a megamarket, I can't complain about the available choice. For my daily bread I have settled on granary baps (which do not only taste quite good but also enriched my vocabulary) covered with the most mature Cheddar I have been able to find. However, when I discovered in the much smaller university supermarket a package of pumpernickel (known to me rather as roggebrood or rye bread), I couldn't resist; since then I have started my days with a houtsnip just like home. The word literally means woodcock; if you think that makes no sense for pumpernickel on cheese on bread, I can't blame you, it makes no sense in Dutch either. But I can recomment it to each and everyone, even with Cheddar!

It even got to the point where I was determined to bring a package of roggebrood from home, if only because it will not be eaten and just moulder away in my absence. However, unfortunately I forgot, so moulder it will. Thus, for my shopping this morning I asked for pumpernickel at Morrisons; who pictures my surprise when I was told they didn't have it, as there was no call for it. How can this be? What do the English have with their pea soup? (Don't answer that.)

For you edification I will end with another of Kees Stip's dierdichten, the full text of which I fortunately found on the all-knowing Internet:


Een houtsnip sprak: ik kan nog snappen
dat alle obers ginnegappen
als ik mijn homoniem bestel.
Maar onwellevend is het wel
om luidkeels tot de kok te kwelen:
'een halve houtsnip voor een hele!'
(Kees Stip / Trijntje Fop)