Food and Drink
Belgian cuisine is generally of high quality, with a style similar to French. There are several regional specialities, often rich in butter, cream, wine or beer. You'll find sauces with everything, including frites with mayonnaise.
Typical dishes include:
- Chicon Gratin or Gegratineerd witloof (Belgian endives baked in melted cheese).
- Flemish Carbonades or Vlaams stoofvlees (similar to the French Beef Bourguignon but made with beer instead of red wine).
- Lapin à la Gueuze or Konijn in Gueuze (rabbit in Gueuze, which is a spontaneously fermented, sour beer from the area around Brussels).
- Moules Frites or Mosselen-Friet (mussels and chips).
- Paling In 't Groen or Anguilles au vert (eels in a green sauce of mixed herbs).
- Salade Liégeoise (a salad with green beans, pieces of bacon, onions and vinegar).
- Stoemp (potato mashed with other vegetables, often served with sausage).
- Tartines (open sandwiches of rustic bread, served on a board and eaten with knife and fork. They may be spread with paté or soft cheese).
- Waterzooi (a mild casserole of fish or chicken in cream, associated with Ghent).
The Ardennes is notable for Charcuterie, or cold meat products, particularly paté, which may be made of game such as wild boar.
Chips, called frieten (Flemish) or frites (French) are very popular. The best place to enjoy Belgian frites is at a friture (frituur or informally frietkot in Flemish) which is a temporary construction usually strategically placed in busy squares.
Another Belgian speciality is beer. The biggest brewery in the world by volume is Inbev based in Belgium, which produces beers such as Hoegaarden and Jupiler. Although a comparatively small country, there are a large number of beers available in a range of different styles. One of the many beers with high prestige is that of the Trappist monks. Technically, it is an ale and traditionally each abbey's beer is served in its own glass (the forms, heights and widths are different). There are only seven breweries (six of them are Belgian) that are allowed to brew Trappist beer. The typical Trappist range consists of one or more of:
- A relatively weak beer, sometimes called Enkel, which is often brewed for internal consumption only.
- Dubbel, a fairly strong dark beer.
- Tripel, now generally understood as a strong golden ale, although older examples may be dark.
- A very strong beer (in the same range as barley wine) which is sometimes called a Quadrupel.
Belgium is also well known for its waffles, usually eaten a street snack, and its chocolate, particularly pralines (filled chocolates).
