Work through the list in order. Hide the notes when you know what to do.
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Eat herring with onion
Lightly cured new-catch herring with chopped onion and gherkins, eaten at the stall. You hold it by the tail and lower it in, or take it in a broodje bun.
The Hollandse Nieuwe season runs late May to early July, when the fish is at its fattest. The onion and gherkins are there to balance the fat rather than to flavour it.
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Get a stroopwafel from the market
Two thin waffles glued with hot caramel syrup, pressed in front of you. Fresh, it is soft and stretches rather than snapping — a different thing entirely from the packet version.
A packaged one is placed on top of a coffee cup so the steam softens the syrup. A fresh market one needs nothing.
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Order bitterballen
Crisp balls with hot meat ragout inside, served with sharp mustard. The classic brown café snack, ordered by the plate for the table with beer.
The inside is scalding: bite and wait a minute. The name comes from bittertje, the shot of spirits they were once served with.
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Eat patat met sauce
Thick-cut chips in a paper cone under a heavy layer of sauce. Nobody just asks for mayonnaise: there is a full sauce menu, and the classic is patatje oorlog.
Oorlog means war and combines mayonnaise, satay peanut sauce and raw onion at once. Fritessaus is lighter than mayonnaise and made specifically for chips.
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Try Dutch cheeses
Gouda at different ages, from young and mild to old, crystalline and almost caramel. Market stalls let you taste through the stages, and the difference is enormous.
Ask for oude kaas, aged a year or more, where tyrosine crystals crunch. Its neighbours are Edam, cumin-studded Leiden and goat's gouda.
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Order a rijsttafel
The Indonesian rice table: rice surrounded by fifteen or so small dishes — curries, satay, sambals, vegetables. A colonial invention that became an Amsterdam tradition.
It is ordered for two at minimum and you go hungry. The sambal is fiercely hot: put it at the edge of the plate and mix it in gradually.
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Get a broodje kroket
An elongated croquette of ragout tucked into a soft roll with mustard. A lunch classic, sold in cafés and from coin-operated wall vending hatches on the street.
The hot croquette vending walls are an Amsterdam institution and run late. The roll should be soft; a crusty one fights the croquette.
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Try erwtensoep in winter
Pea soup thick enough to stand a spoon in, with smoked sausage and pork ribs. Winter food, eaten at the skating rink and after a walk along the canals.
A proper one is made the day before; on the second day it is thicker and better. It comes with rye bread and a slice of smoked bacon on top.
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Try stamppot
Mashed potato beaten together with kale, endive or carrot and onion, served with smoked sausage and a well of gravy in the middle. Home winter food.
The kale version is boerenkool; carrot and onion make hutspot. The gravy well is not stirred in but dipped into.
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Get kibbeling
Chunks of battered white fish with garlic sauce, sold from the same fish stalls as the herring. The gentler entry point for anyone who does not want it raw.
It comes in a cone with a small fork and is eaten walking. The same stalls sell smoked eel, expensive but a genuine local classic.
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Eat poffertjes Desserts and pastries
Tiny puffed pancakes made with yeast and buckwheat flour, served in a heap with a knob of butter and icing sugar. Cooked in a dimpled cast-iron pan.
The butter goes on hot so it melts through. The bigger relative is the pannenkoek, a plate-sized thin pancake, savoury or sweet.
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Try Dutch appeltaart Desserts and pastries
A tall pie with a thick shortcrust wall packed with big chunks of apple, cinnamon and raisins, served with a mountain of whipped cream. Neither strudel nor tart, and denser than both.
The slice is huge and built for coffee rather than as an after-dinner dessert. The cream is unsweetened, and it is meant to be.
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Try drop liquorice Desserts and pastries
Salty liquorice, the national sweet, eaten by the Dutch in greater quantity than by anyone else. The salt comes from ammonium chloride, and the first taste is a shock.
Start with the sweet zoete drop rather than the salty zoute, which does not ease you in. It is sold by weight in snoepwinkel sweet shops.
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Drink a koffie verkeerd Non-alcoholic drinks
Wrong coffee: coffee with a lot of hot milk in a glass, the Dutch take on a latte. A biscuit almost always arrives on the saucer.
The biscuit is standard rather than a particular café's gesture. Plain black coffee is koffie; ask for an espresso by name.
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Try jenever Local alcohol
A juniper spirit built on malt wine: the ancestor of gin, but fuller and breadier. It is poured to the very brim of a tulip glass, and the first sip is taken without lifting it from the bar.
Ask for oude jenever, aged and softer than the young jonge. Paired with a beer it is a kopstootje, a little head-butt.
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Drink witbier or a trappist Local alcohol
The Dutch and Belgian brewing traditions are close at hand: wheat beer with coriander and orange peel, dark abbey beers and trappists. Every brown café keeps a local draught.
The head is struck off with a spatula, which is the local pour rather than carelessness. Strong abbey beers come in small glasses, not pints.
