DUO – Inburgeraars/Inburgeren

DUO – Inburgeraars/Homepage 2010.

Inburgeren is part of the integration required of all newcomers to the  Netherlands.  It is not a requirement for EU citizens, because of the rules governing the free movement of people, but for people from other countries, it is compulsory.

Integration courses are, however, very helpful, if not compulsory, for the EU citizen, as they involve basic language tuition, and some basic information on Dutch culture.  KNS – the knowledge of Dutch society – is a fundamental part of these courses.  Knowing more about the people with whom you live and/or work seems (at least to me) to be invaluable.

Traditional: Capucijners met spek

Capucijners area brown pea-like bean that I have not managed to find outside the Netherlands – frequently sold dried, or tinned, they are (when soaked) round, quite firm, and with the texture of kidney beans.

Ingredients

2 large tins capucijners

1 pack spekreepjes (chopped up bacon pieces)

small pickled gherkins

small pickled onions

Method

Empty the two tins of capucijners into a pan, together with the liquid – warm through.  Fry the bacon pieces until very crispy. Drain any remaining liquid from the pan of beans.  Mix bacon and beans together.

When serving, add gherkins and pickled onions.  A very welcome addition is to garnish with mayonnaise.

More variations on this are to flavour the mayonnaise with mustard, and to serve pineapple chunks with the beans.  Diced apple also works well.

Traditional – Uitsmijter

It’s probably stretching things to call this a recipe, rather like saying “Beans on Toast” is a recipe, but it is a recogniseable item of food eaten by the Dutch – certainly at home.

Ingredients

Butter

2 slices (white) bread

2 slices ham or cheese

2 eggs

Butter the bread.  Lay the cheese slices or ham slices on top of each slice of bread.  Fry the eggs (also in butter, but oil could be used instead).

Bagage

I have started typing up my translation of the Dutch inburgeringscursus Samenleving guide – and it is proving to be a larger project than I thought.  I am putting a few pictures found on the internet, and wondering whether to scan in things from the book itself.

But this seems to merely scratch the surface of what I want to achieve.  There is another book that we use, called CODE, which has again a lot of helpful information.

Maybe the process of going through the book like this is a sort of revision – consolidating what I have learned.  Better hurry up – I have now finished the “translation” in longhand of chapter 1 and we are already working through chapter 5 in class.