What I love most about filet Américain is that while the name is French, you can only get it in Holland, and no American alive has ever heard of the damn stuff. 
Saw the news about the tube monkeys, owl. First thing I thought was, “Damn, a lot of people are going to miss the first half now”. Sucks. GBP 35K to steer a tube car? For real?
I think most Americans alive wouldn’t eat it either. I remember most Americans I know being absolutley disgusted by “tartaar” (they kept mumbling: “How can they eat raw meat?”), yet they like their steaks rare. What a weird country.
I’ll go you one Dutcher. I know Americans that shudder at the thought of eating a raw herring, yet they completely adore sushi. Hello? 
Damn, now I have a serieus craving for a good herring. For those uninitiated: this is how you eat them. Raw, gutted and decapitated, dragged through diced onion bits, hanging by the tail. It’s absolutely fantastic.
Oooooooh yeeeesssssss! “Hollandse Nieuwe met uitjes”. My mouth is watering right now! No, I’m not being facetious. I love “nieuwe haring” (but for some reeason my wife refuses to kiss me for hours, nay days, afterwards)!
£35k pa, public sector pension, six weeks holiday, 35 hour week, all the sick leave you can handle, free (horrible) uniform, free travel on tubes, buses, and trains.
Nice work if you can get it.
So what is “filet americain” then?
Ha! I found a place to watch the semifinals and finals without the need to travel to another country! Just have to drive across the bay.
Anyway, the Dutch and Portugese is today, right? What time is the start? Hup Oranje! 
Filet Américain is basically raw finely ground meat with some added mayonaise. It tastes quite good especially with some raw diced onion bits (yes, it’s our main condiment), but don’t punt any of it under a microscope. Let’s just say your intestines can handle it. Usually.
Never buy a broodje filet on the street and/or on Queens Day, though. That’s playing with your life.
So, uh… how about that uhm, football match? You know? Tonight?
The Edammer eating klutzing-through-the-quarters monkeys versus the Ribafria chugging semi-Brazilian speaking post-dictatorship monkeys?
Shibb, the game starts at 19:45 Portuguese/UK, 20:45 CET, if that’s a good reference for you.
I’m a bit late to this thread, but harking back to last Thursday I just wanted to say that watching England v Portugal on the big screens in front of the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury with 60,000 others was just incredible. Of course, it could have been so much better… 
Aaaaaaargh! Will you all stop about kroketten, bitterballen, tartaartjes and the rest. Like I said, can’t even get koffiemelk. (Coldfire: hadn’t heard the term stofkoei before. Not sure if we have it; I haven’t really looked for that. Go for Liddl’s condensed whenever mum’s supplies run out, but it isn’t the same)
Add to list, Bami, Nasi, kroepoek (not the styrofoam that passes for prawncrackers here), white asparagus (best in the world from my hometown), witlof (can be got but is very expensive), andijviestamppot and Brand beer.
What were we talking about again?
I say Makaaij will score if let on.
Aparagus… Brand beer… godmejaar, we got ourselves a frickin’ Limburger.
So, from Roermond or thereabouts, then - asparaguswise? Lived in Maastricht for 6 years myself - loved it, still go back there every 2 months or so, couldn’t do it permanently. Too… slow.
Christ on a bike! No wonder you legalised dope. It’s the only way you’d get the munchies bad enough to eat that.
In today’s Telegraph there is an article regardng the semis in which it says that the four countries with the worst food in Europe have got through (and this is from a British paper!)
As a neutral I am hoping that the Dutch get an early goal and make the portugeezers come to them. It has the potential to be a real classic, with both sides heavy on skillful pacy attackers. I would like Postigol to make a similar impact as the England game (it will increase his sell on value).
Looks like Ruud the talking horse is off to Real Madrid. That’s just what they need, another forward “galactico”. They want to buy some defenders.
Also I deperately hope that Wenger gets the French job.
Yes, I did that bit about the kroketten and bitterballen in Mmmmmmora style accent.
Good guess with Roermung, I’m from Venlo, but haven’t lived there for years.
Well, then that sounds like 14:45 pm, Eastern USA time. I might miss part of the first half, depending on when my work crews finish up today.
owl, a British paper complaining about, of all things, Portuguese food?? The irony! I love Portuguese.
Pookah, aha, Venlo. City of… errr… wait, it’ll get to me… well, it’s known for its… ah… uh…
Just kidding. Nice enough town, don’t know it too well. Seems a little TOO Germany-oriented for my taste. I mean, that supermarket downtown that reads die Zwei Gebrüder von Venlo or words to that effect? Nothing against Germans, and I realise that Amsterdam is full of English signs, but it’s still somewhat… I don’t know. Strange?
Don’t the locals say something like Remunje, where the last “e” is almost silent?
[QUOTE=Coldfire]
owl, a British paper complaining about, of all things, Portuguese food?? The irony! I love Portuguese.
QUOTE]
Hmmmm…Given that we have discovered that the dutch diet is made up of Faaaany Batter; Fjish Ejyes; Skrotuum and Purv…
here’s a brief extract from the article (it’s on the telegraph site, but you have to register)>>>>>>>>>>
So how does that explain, then, the presence in the semi-final of Euro 2004 this evening of two of the worst culinary traditions in Europe? And yes, I am aware that coming from Britain, pots and kettles may be involved here. Except that the menu from the average gastro-pub in Grantham is more extensive than almost anything I have ever found available in Holland. There, they make cheese which tastes of bath soap and the apex of choice is the offer of mayonnaise or ketchup with your fries. Little wonder that wherever you travel in the world you will meet Dutch people, representatives of a nation escaping home in search of something decent to eat…
The Portuguese have a thing about fish. Or rather, two types of fish. Sardines, served grilled with boiled potatoes, are delicious the first few times you have them, but begin to pale after the 45th. Particularly as a breakfast option.
The other Portuguese fish dish is baccahlau, or salted cod. With the emphasis on the word salted. One night in a restaurant in Lavadores, the sea front resort area of Oporto, I tried the chef’s special baccahlau. To describe it as salty is barely to scratch at the surface of its salinity. This was a piece of fish apparently hewn straight from the salt mines of Northwich. After three forkfuls of its eye-watering crustiness, I could plough on no further and hid the rest under the salad so as not to upset a friendly waiter. I thought I had got away with it, but then spent the night clutching a bottle of mineral water, trying to pacify a throat that was doing a passable impression of the Gobi Desert…
…
We’re known for a gang (bende) and a Dutch pop idol winner. :eek: I’m sticking to asparagus as the essence of Venloness.
Die Zwei Gebrueder…not sure that the word “Gebrueder” features in the German language much, actually. But I agree with the sentiment.
Yes, Remunje sounds about right. I can understand them alright, but did you ever try to converse with someone talking in the dialect of Kerkade? Mad!
I’ll try and stop hijacking now.
The writer obviously went to a restaurant with an incompetent chef. Bacalhau is indeed very salty. That’s why it should be soaked in water for at least a day, and the water should be changed at least three or four times during that day. If you do this you get really delicious bacalhau that almost melts on the tongue.
The Brazilians are also very fond of bacalhau (must be because Portugal is a former province of Brazil). My favourite is “bolinhos de bacalhau”, because it’s so much fun to say.
“bolinhos de bacalhau”, “bolinhos de bacalhau”, “bolinhos de bacalhau”, “bolinhos de bacalhau”…
[hijack]Are the Portuguese dyslexic, because a lot of countries in the world call codfish kabeljauw, kabeljau, or cabillau, but the Spanish and Portuguese revese the first two consonants. Any linguists here to explain why?[/hijack]
I know! I had a housemate in Maastricht who was a miner, errrr, Kirchroaier. I learned that it’s easiest to decipher when you think of it as a German dialect rather than a Dutch one. In actuality, I’ve been told, it’s almost identical to Kölsch Platt!
Can you confirm or deny, Mycroft?
Anyways, football, right? HOLLAND!!!
Ack, 3 more hours. I need booze. Best drive home first, I suppose.
Sorry, I don’t speak Kölsch or Kirchroaier. Maybe you can compare it to the texts of a typical Bläck Fööss song. To me Kölsch just sounds like gibberish. I think Frisian might be easier to understand.
