Sunday, December 9, 2012

You now you are Dutch when.....



A couple of years ago a girlfriend of mine gave me a long a long list entitled "You Know You are Dutch When......" . While the original list is much longer than the one I included, these are the ones that I experienced growing up in a Dutch family. Honestly, aside from the cheese slicer, and the chocolate letters at Christmas, I thought most of these practices were unique to my family. Much to my amusement, they are not. If you are Dutch or knows anyone who is Dutch you will enjoy this :0)
 
1. The temp is so low in your house that two sweaters is a bare minimum if you want to be remotely warm
2. During the winter it is warmer outside than it is inside
3. You open the freezer and are excited to find a container of ice cream, only to open it and discover it is full of homemade soup.
4.When looking in the fridge, you never trust that the yogurt containers contain what the label says.
5.You have a pair of wooden shoes in your house.
6.You have eaten oliebollen at New Years.
7. You enjoy chocolate sprinkle (hagelslag) sandwiches
8. You have cousins who wear size 14 shoes and are over 6'4.
9. You wash and reuse plastic cups and cutlery.
10. You have soup and open faced sandwiches for Sunday lunch
11. The most frequent phrase uttered growing up was "turn off the lights"!
12. You get a chocolate letter every year at Christmas
13. All your tables in your house are covered with table clothes
14. You like croquettes
15. Your Oma had a calender hanging  on the bathroom wall with every one's birthdays and anniversary's on it.
16. You have been known to recycle aluminium foil. And Ziploc bags.
17. You own a special utensil that is only used for cutting cheese.
18.You know that Gouda is the best cheese ever!
19. You reuse teabags
20. You eat sandwiches open faced.
21. You rarely  have both meat and cheese on the same sandwhich.
22. You have never met half the relatives at your family reunion.
23. You put a little water into the jar of tomato sauce and shake it to make sure you got it all out.
24.You make the bed in your hotel room.
25. you have a front room nobody sits in (it is only used for special occasions). 
26.You eat apple stroop. (Something that looks like roof tar).
27. Your fridge is always stocked with leftovers. Throw out food? Never!
28. You have pictures of windmills around your house.
28.Everything is Do-It-Yourself -its cheaper than hiring someone.
29. You use "washandjes" (faceclothes that you can put your hand into).
30. You're laughing along with this list because you can relate to most of it!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

so are you telling me that many of these things are only happening in Dutch families and not in every family?