Questions about life in the Netherlands?

Question

1. What do you eat? What type of foods are in your refrig or home?

2. Could you describe the types of homes in your country and the one you live in.

3. Please feel add anything else unique or interesting about your country.

I am asking 27 different countries I found on Yahoo! Answers, thank you.

Answer 1

1, Breakfast and lunch, bread with toppings of ready made salads, peanut butter, slized meat or a chocolate spread.
Dinner, mostly pasta with vegetables and meats.
Traditionally the Dutch eat meat, potato and one kind of vegetables, often mashed together.
Or soups that are most of the meal.
After the dinner we traditionally have 'vla' a custard that is between liquid and solid, eaten cold.
This is now available in many different versions, like chocolate, caramel or fruit.

Several times a day most people drink coffee or tea, with a bisquit or a bit of chocolate.

In my fridge you find little, often a frozen bread, some salad to spread on the bread and some sauses like mayonaise and ketchup.

My parents have one that is more traditional for Dutch people.
They always have some slized meat, some pieces of cheese, butter, yoghurt plain or with fruits, milk, cordial (to make lemonade from,) often meat ready to cook the next day, fresh vegetables, and often leftovers from dinner yesterday.

I live in an apartment, one in a long low block. Floor level is storages and garages, above it 3 levels of 3 and 4 room (plus kitchen and bathroom) appartments, some are 5 room.
In our part of the country apartment blocks like these, 3 or 4 levels, are common, but still most people live in terrased houses.
Living and kitchen on floor level, two bigger and one small bed room, and a bathroom on the first floor, and sometimes one or two more bedrooms on the attic.

About 50% of the Dutch own their houses, but from the outside you can not see which are owned and which are rented.
Often blocks that used to be rented are sold to the people living there, sometimes all, but also not rarely just a few out of a bigger block.

Answer 2

1. Bread, cheese, peanutbutter, chocolate sprinkles (hagelslag), ham, jam. For dinner the usual is potatoes with vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower (or another type of cabbage) or green beans. We also love foreign food like macaroni, spaghetti, lasagne, nasi, bami and so on.

2. The avarage type of home in the Netherlands is a terraced house but I myself live in a detached house (an old farm that used to be in the country but has long since been surrounded by other houses and buildings).

3. Cycling is safe and you're able to go basically everywhere on a bicycle. Another popular way of travelling is by public transport (maybe even more so because public transport is free for students of higher education, which is the main reason why I travel by bus, metro and train).

Answer 3

Who knows if humans will ever comprehend this vey simple concept. If people want to do and are doing something you CANNOT just make a law and have everyone stop. You cannot legislate morality. No matter how bad the religious right wants to force us to believe as they do - you cant! If you really want something to stop you have to educate people as to WHY it should stop. Even better would be to have non-religious, universal reasons for why it should stop not just some quote from an old book. I am curious how the Netherlands achieved this. My guess is that it wasnt a heavy handed, believe as I believe, religiously toned argument

Answer 4

1 I mostly eat foreign foods, like Indonesian, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, and Mexican, and when I eat typically Dutch food, it's normally a one pan dish with vegetables and potatoes or it would be fish.

2 There are all kinds of homes, new ones, old ones, apartment buildings. The really old ones are the prettiest thanks to their gables, whereas really new ones can look very good, but are usually built on the wrong sites, which makes them spit ugly. I live in a house with a modest gable, built in 1908.

3 We are famous for our tulips, windmills, wooden shoes, liberal drug policies, dead painters, ...

Answer 5

Hmm, I'd like to see the result of your queries. :)

1. This differs from person to person but here is a general description.

For breakfast (typical 7AM) most people have bread with all kind of sweet (chocolate paste or crumbs, jams, coconut slices, honey, "appelstroop", etc. and savoury (salads, peanutbutter, cheese, ham, egg) spreads. I think most people go for slices and usually a darker bread. For more special occassion pastries can be added too. Another big group of people go for muesli and other grain products.

For lunch (typical past noon) working people tend to take some sandwiches (simple ones with two slices and a single spread - not like the big UK ones) and sometimes some fruit. Some working places have restaurant. Then people often add soups and some snacks. A roll with a croquette is quit popular.

Dinner (typical 19.00) can be anything. There are typical Dutch dishes which are eaten but kitchen tends to be more international and somehwat "fusion". Most foreign influence comes from the French, Chinese, Indonesian and Italian cuisines but you see a healthy interest in the others too. Eating outdoors is more for special occassion as eating out is expensive. Take away food is popular though and since more and more people are busy with work, ready to cook meals are popular too.

Restaurantwise we pretty much have everything. Some which you will find in most town are Chinese/Indonesian, French/Dutch, Middle Eastern and Italian.

Special mention should be made of the Dutch snackbars which sell mostly fries, deep fried snacks and sandwiches. You find these anywhere (the US chains have not managed to drive them out of bussiness) and most of the food is only found in the Netherlands. These cafetarias are used for quick eats but you also often see that families order a take away there once every so often.

2. You'll find any type of home here from houseboats to villa's. Most common houses are those built together in rows and apartment building.

3. Hmm. A few things to add:
- Multilingual. Most Dutch speak at least one foreign language. One reason for this is that Dutch TV is subtitled. So we are subjected to multiple languages from a very young age. In my case that resulted in me understanding German six years before I learned it at school.
The most common secondary language is english and it a lot in daily use. But not in the way it would take over the role of Dutch.
We learn multiple languages at school and we are encouraged to do so. From one side since the Netherlands is tradionaly strong in international trade. From the other side since few other countries use it.

- Working in the Netherlands. One thing that can surprise foreigners is the way we treat eachother at work. The Netherlands are somewhat egalitarian (one theory is that this stems from everybody from all levels having to work together fighting the sea). Hierarchy does exist and people from "different levels" will often not have much to do with eachother in the work itself. Still, you'll often find them chatting together and joking when they run into eachother. Direct colleagues including their chiefs and subordinates will often treat eachother as equals (though position will determine responsibilities etc.) and you don't find the distance I've often witnessed in other other countries. In most companies you find people addressing most people on a first name base independent of level. You also see this in shops and when meeting people. Most people switch from the polite "u" to the common "je" very quickly or invite the other person to do so.
One note from an US book on finding a job here: let them know you have the certificates needed for a job but don't expect them to be too impressed by them. Here it's more that you have to proof yourself in the work itself than what your papers suggest.
The egalitarian character also has another side. Dutch con't like it if somebody behaves as if he's better than another. Rich people complain that they can be rich but are not allowed to show if or they get treated like snobs. I think this stems from the Calvinists who have had a strong influence on the culture. It's also the reason Dutch tend to work hard (even if going for shorter workdays).
- Liberal. To some extend. To me it's more like pragmatic and a "live and let live" attitude. Softdrugs users are not normally prosecuted and prostitution is legal. The background ideas are that people are responsible for their own actions, that if it goes wrong they are not criminals but at most victims (i.e. leave the door open for them to seek help), that the scene is beter controled this way (limitations to what coffeshops can sell, health care for prostitutes) and that legal forced should concetrate on more serious things like hard drugs and forced prostitution.
At this moment (or since 9/11) there is a stronger right wing movement and you find a lot of somewhat less liberal voices.
- Country: very flat and very full.
- Very regulated: lots of rules and reglations sometimes. Government is trying to make this beter but it's restrictive for certain things.

For me I feel this is a good country to live in. Even with imperfections it may have.

Answer 6

never been there but i want to someday, im only answering this question to keep track of the answers and see the other answers too =D