Local transport in The Hague

Lots of bikes, not many chillies

I haven't found a lot about the history of the chilli or its consumption in my two days at in The Hague in the Netherlands. Having high tea in a nearby bakery cafe was further evidence on the other hand that bread is very big here, however, as the six different breads that came with the cheeses and the meats and salads, before the cakes, were a feature of the event. That was late in the day after the oliebollen - donuts - and the applecake (very delicious.)  Anyway the point of the high tea discussion was that the pumpkin soup in a glass that kick started the meal was light and delicious, and spiced up with chilli.

I am surprised there isn't a stronger chilli visibility here given the Dutch history of colonisation and trade in both the East Indies (where the chilli was being picked up in a flash from the Portuguese, around the same time as the Dutch were taking over) and the West Indies, where they still have a colony or so, very close to the original home of the chilli in Mexico.

 I'm sure there is actually a stronger chilli presence, but I am only here for a couple of days, and while The Hague might have once been known as the widow of the East Indies, these days the most obvious cultural qualities seem to be the bread, art museums, the International Court of Justice, and the community and commuter commitment to bicycling.

That's the most obvious difference here to me in a society in many ways quite similar to Australia. The number of non sporty serious every day child and shopping carrying bicycles is huge. It makes life as a pedestrian, and presumably as a car driver, quite quite different.

One might imagine a lot of people are pretty fit as a consequence. They look it.  Still the lack of bike helmets might impact on the health outcomes to some cyclists. And the smoking over beer and coffee, while fun for the smokers, might have a few health impacts to redress just a little the imbalance back in favour of big non cycling Australia.

chilli at high tea in The Hague

Madrid

final Patio. This one of Ainslie.

Culture - what we do around here

Culture

well the chilli world tour is over for another year. more or less. and it doesn't seem that the significance of the chilli and its ubiquity is celebrated as much as it ought to be. Even in Portugal, which is known to have spread the chilli around the world, we didn't actually run into my chilli in Portuguese cuisine, except piri piri sauce with barbecued chicken.

 An  interesting point that Grette found on a Yale site was that the chilli really came in to the USA via people from West Africa who were brought in as slaves (they had clearly been early adopters of the chilli when it arrived with Portuguese traders) rather than by encroaching over the border more organically from its indigent home in Mexico.

One of the joys of this journey was to kind of come to grips with how seriously married people can be to their food. Comparisons, which I am so inclined to make, are insidious. And I know that. Thoughtful rational view would remind me that the typical Australian cuisine is extraordinarily rich in its diversity which ranges from various immigrant communities keeping the faith with their heritage to the innovative fresh food fusion that draws on Asian and European ingredients.   And that the take away food culture is fairly common across the developed world.

But what I noticed in all three countries we visited was both a loyalty and pleasure that people we came across took in their food.  And in that context, while the Middle East and Africa and Asia in all its diversity embraced the chilli with gusto, the Spanish and Portuguese, who distributed the chilli world wide, didn't take it on in the same way; the occasional piquancy of patatas bravas of Spain and the kick in Portugal's piri piri not withstanding. Rather they just took what they wanted from the capsicum family  and made pimientos a feature of everyday pub food - meals, tapas and all that. ie Capsicums. Red and green. Lots and lots of them. Skinned red peppers with tuna. Whole baked green peppers with grilled meat and chips. Strips of red and green capsicums in all sorts of salads. Peppers stuffed with minced pork and prawns, or bread and fish. Chillies in a sense, but not as we know them.

This 2013 leg of the chilli world tour has been big  in terms of culture: the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Berbers, the Arabs and the Catholics; leaning and hearing different languages; social and economic pain in a post industrial world and the cultural impact of that; writing things on walls; dance, song and ceramics. How people live together. As well as the food. Knowing who you are by the food you eat and how you eat it..

Finally - talking about cultures around the globe -  the different cultural difference I've noticed this trip is the gap between Qantas and Emirates when it comes to aeroplane music. Qantas has a kind of world music - including Shakira, Martha Wainwright, Paca Pena, Herb Albert. Emirates have a massive bunch of music tracks from Addis Ababa, West Africa, South Africa, Iran, South America, India, all around the world.  Great sounds to travel by.

Grette's photo of Madrid Skyline evening May 13, not quite so glorious where I am at the airport.