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The Culinary Beauty of Belgium - May 2008It has been said of the Belgians that they spend the morning contemplating what they had for breakfast and preparing for lunch, the afternoon reflecting upon lunch and readying for dinner, and the evening waxing poetic about what they enjoyed at dinnertime. In other words, food is very important to them. As is beer. And given the intensity of these twin passions, it should come as no surprise that in Belgium, beer and cuisine frequently intertwine. Enter any café in the land, be it in the centre of Brussels or lost in the Flemish countryside, and you will inevitably find, either on a page of the menu or chalked upon a slate hanging from the wall, a listing of the beers available to enjoy with your meal. It may not be a lengthy list, but it will almost certainly be a diverse one, with flavours to enliven any item on the menu. And surprisingly often, the menu will also explain with which beer each item has been prepared, reminding you that these are the people who invented cuisine à la bière. Belgian food and Belgian beer are not only complementary, they are also similar. With so many beers to choose from, there is quite literally a Belgian beer for every occasion, be it formal or informal, social or solitary, day or night. And so, too, does their gastronomy run the full gamut of culinary possibilities, from haute cuisine – Belgian food critic Henri Lemaire once wrote: "I can state without foolish nationalism (that) we in Belgium eat better than the French" – to casual café fare. Yet, while Belgium was once, and may still be, home to the greatest per capita number of Michelin-starred restaurants in the world, it is at the cafes and brasseries that the marriage of beer and cuisine reaches its sublime, almost spiritual peak. In captivating boîtes like the ornate, art nouveau Le Cirio in central Brussels, or plain village bars like Schepdaal's In De Rare Vos – or beautiful temples of fine cuisine like 't Truffeltje in Dendermonde, where I recently relished in a spectacular, multi-course, Bosteels Brewery-themed lunch – the visitor truly begins to appreciate why Belgian chef Ruth Van Waerebeek chose as the title of her cookbook, Everybody Eats Well in Belgium. One can scarcely speak of classic Belgian bistro dishes like carbonade Flamande (Flemish beef stew) or waterzooi (a creamy seafood soup/stew, sometimes made with chicken instead of fish) without mentioning beer in the same breath. For surely the rich, beefy flavours of a carbonade will suffer without an equally rich, malty ale like the Trappist monastery-produced Chimay Blue or Westmalle Dubbel or Achel Extra, available as both ingredient and table accompaniment. And even if you elect not to use beer in the creation of your waterzooi, it will most certainly be a lesser dish without a glass of strong, spicy golden ale such as Duvel or Tripel Karmeliet at its side. Indeed, as much as the Belgians appreciate fine wine – they are the world's second largest per capita consumers of Bordeaux and other French wines – a good deal of their native cuisine is more harmoniously paired with a glass of the grain rather than one of the grape, hardy surprising insofar as Belgian beer and gastronomy have been raised side by side. Among the many possibilities are guinea hen cooked with sour cherries and served with a fruit limbic like the Lou Pepe Kriek of Cantillon; beef or horse steak grilled medium-rare and accompanied by the uniquely sweet-sour-bitter Trappist ale, Orval; or sautéed cod or halibut served on a bed of endive and covered in a cream sauce made with a Belgian wheat beer, always spiced with coriander and orange peel, enjoyed alongside an ale of the same style, such as St. Bernardus Wit, or for something quite different, the methode champenoise beer, DeuS. For arguably the definitive word in Belgian café fare, however, one must turn to the perennial favourite, moules frites, or mussels served with twice-cooked Belgian fries. When the mollusks are in season, it is virtually impossible to enter any café in the land without being immediately engulfed by the sweet fragrance of freshly steamed mussels, perhaps cooked in limbic, perhaps in white wine, with the subtle aroma of the beer or wine adding to the air's perfume, or in a heavier broth concocted with a potent, spicy golden ale. Enjoyed with mayonnaise for the frites and a glass of the beer used for the steaming, it may be the ultimate in Belgian food experiences. Even with desserts does Belgian beer shine. It should come as no shock that a country as famed for its chocolate as Belgium is should also boast a diversity of complementary beverages, from sweet, fruit juice-charged lambics like Lindemans Kriek to malty Scotch ales like that of the Brasserie Silly – which, despite their Celtic provenance, seem to be enjoyed more in Belgium than in Scotland – to perhaps the ultimate in chocolate-friendly beers, Rochefort 8. By now, you should be hungry, and thirsty, as I am typing these words. Given that, allow me to suggest that, in the short term, at least, you quench your hunger and your thirst at a local Belgian-style or Belgian-influenced café, bar or restaurant. In the long term, however, you should start planning a trip to Belgium. Begin with a visit to www.visitflanders.us and whichever airline you favor, and follow up with the purchase of a train pass, since travel through this pint-sized country by rail is so easy and affordable, and you don’t want to be driving with all that great beer at your disposal. Then get your bags packed, accept that you will gain weight, and go. Trust me, you won’t be sorry. Feature Articles
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