French cuisine captures the imagination of many, as does Italian cuisine, for example. Often overlooked is the Dutch cuisine, which also offers a worthwhile culinary experience. The Netherlands is rich in beautiful products, both from the land and from the sea. In addition, the Netherlands has many age-old traditions. The combination between all the beauty that the Netherlands has to offer from the land and from the sea and the traditions that the Dutch have often maintained for generations makes for an exciting, contemporary and above all quirky cuisine.
Master chef Angélique Schmeinck is ambassador of Dutch Cuisine. Dutch Cuisine puts Dutch cuisine and food culture on the map internationally for a wide audience. Dutch cuisine reaches a whole new level hundreds of metres up in the balloon where Angélique prepares contemporary culinary dishes for CuliAir guests using ingredients from Dutch soil.
Dutch cuisine on the map
The fate of the Dutch has been intertwined with the sea for centuries. The sea offered the Dutch access to distant worlds and fed them as an important resource with a wide variety of fish and shellfish. But the sea could also be unrelenting. Land was constantly under pressure from the water, with major consequences for how their country is on the map today. And even today, the battle with the water continues. That eternal struggle and love between the land where we live and the sea that gives and takes has ensured that creativity and innovativeness are in the Dutch DNA. And that creativity and innovativeness can be seen everywhere: in Dutch art or architecture, for example, but also in Dutch cuisine. The Netherlands offers enough local products, history and techniques that the Dutch can be proud of and that are reflected in Dutch cuisine.
Dutch Cuisine aims to put Dutch cuisine on the map with the continuous flow of innovations and creativity we see on the plates of Dutch chefs. It does so using five principles around culture, health, nature, quality and value.
1 – Culture: in-season products from Dutch soil
Dutch Cuisine promotes Dutch food culture. This means that nature determines the menu. The dish you find on your plate should tell you something about where in the Netherlands you are and in which season. The aim is to use 80% seasonal products, as much as possible from Dutch soil.
2 – Healthy: vegetables have the lead role
Many Dutch people eat more animal products than is healthy. That’s why Dutch Cuisine turns it around: no vegetables as garnish, but meat. With a goal of 80% vegetables and only 20% meat or fish, there is an important emphasis on what is good for our bodies and minds, but also what is good for the earth.
3 – Nature: we eat what nature offers us
What our land and sea gives us, we have to make do with. We use no artificial additives and don’t just use the most obvious parts, but use everything, from head to tail. That way you taste the pure, natural flavours and we don’t waste anything.
4 – Quality: respect for ingredients
The ingredients used in Dutch cuisine should be seasonal as much as possible, but also regionally grown or produced, pure, fresh, animal-friendly, fair trade and organic as much as possible. This way, honest quality products are used with respect for the ingredients, the origin and the producer.
5 – Value: the combination of culture, health, nature and quality leads to gains
Combining the 4 principles around culture, health, nature and quality creates profits: we waste less and take better care of our earth, we live healthier and thus take better care of ourselves, but also of animals. And by using as many local seasonal ingredients as possible, Dutch producers are also given a fair price.
Top stage for Dutch Cuisine
It should be obvious: Dutch Cuisine deserves the highest stage and it gets it at CuliAir, the world’s highest restaurant. As ambassador of Dutch Cuisine, Chef Angélique Schmeinck also brings the five principles of culture, health, nature, quality and value back into the menu. She has been doing so at high altitude in CuliAir’s balloon since 2003 and in 2017, during ‘Dutch Cuisine meets Eataly’ in Milan, she even did so in front of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima as a proud ambassador of Dutch food products and food culture.
Do you also want to experience Dutch cuisine at the highest possible level? Then booking a culinary balloon flight with the CuliAir hot air balloon is a unique opportunity. At high altitude, you will enjoy culinary dishes according to the principles of Dutch Cuisine like you have never done before. A once-in-a-lifetime experience you will never forget.