Raisins - a generational dispute
You can’t have a Dutch New Year’s Eve without 'Oliebollen'. The warm, soft doughnuts dusted with sugar aren’t missed in the household of Hilda and Henk Gedink, either. “But not with raisins for me,” Hilda laughs, referring to a generational long discourse over how the fried pastry that preceded the American doughnut is made and enjoyed around December 31.
Hilda and Henk moved to Carmeen, Virginia, six years ago. They like the remoteness and the quiet. “Not like the Netherlands where it is hard to see where one town stops and the next starts. The country is growing into one big city,” Henk says.
When people ask what that is like, he refers to the data: “In the Netherlands you have 540 people per square kilometre, in Ireland 74.”
That would equate to one person every 10 to 15 steps, whereas in Ireland you’d walk about 100 steps.
So they sold their carglass replacement business and looked for a suitable spot in Ireland – a country they had grown fond of while visiting annually.
“The weather is not much different to the Netherlands,” they assure. So finding this unique place where their dog Ellie, three cats and - most recently - a rescue sheep can live, has been a blessing.
“It’s only the small things you miss,” says Henk, but they are never too far away either: Being just over an hour to the airport allows them to travel back regularly to visit their two daughters and grandchildren.
“I always bring back our favourite treats and our friends here love them as well,” says Hilda about Pepernotjes – small, round honey-anise-cookies traditionally served around Sinterklaas on December 6, the gift-giving day for Dutch people. Christmas meanwhile is more about gathering the family for a festive meal.
From her most recent visit she has also brought back ‘dropjes’ – salty or sweet liquorice drops that every child craves for and ‘gekleurde hagelslag’ - neon-coloured, entirely sugar-based sprinkles for bread. Not unlike Irish people travelling abroad with Tayto-chips and Lyons teabags, the Gedinks find comfort in the foods they are accustomed to.
And as always for New Year’s Eve, Hilda will prepare the ‘Oliebollen’. “If my mother was here, I would make them with raisins,” she concedes at the end.