Dutch Broodje Hagelslag

Dutch Breakfast

BROODJE HAGELSLAG

INGREDIENTS

1 slice white bread
2 teaspoons butter, softened
1 tablespoon chocolate sprinkles or Dutch chocolate sprinkles, hagelslag, if you can find it

Serves 1. Takes 3 minutes.

PREPARATION

Spread butter all over bread. Sprinkle with sprinkles.

Ponder on what an amazingly versatile and speedy chef you’ve become.

TIDBITS

1) In 1633, little Pieter van Voorburg went outside to play.

2) He got hungry. He went inside for food. Mama took time to give Pieter a slice of bread.

3) He ate the bread. Little bits of bread fell from his mouth on to an ant hill.

4) The black ants swarmed the crumbs and took them back to their hill. The ants’ antics entranced the little boy for over an hour. Then he grew hungry once more. He went inside for more food.

5) “Oh Pieter!” cried his very busy mother, “Here, have two slices and some butter too. Now leave me be.”

6) Pieter buttered the bread with his fingers. But now he also wanted meat on his bread. He started back to the house. Then he remembered how cross Mama had been. What to do? Aha! Ants were meat, weren’t they?

7) He grabbed some ants and spread them on the buttered bread. Pieter, ate his slice. It was good. He’d give the other ant-smeared slice to Mama. She’d be pleased at his thoughtfulness.

8) Mama’s scream told Pieter she thought otherwise. Once the shrieking abated, she said in between sobs, “There’s so many black ants that they look like chocolate sprinkles..”

9) Pieter and Mama looked at each other. Looked again. Mama said, “Why I declare, bread with butter and chocolate sprinkles would be very tasty.” And so, a national breakfast was born.

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.