Speculoos, a Belgian tradition

Speculoos, also known as the spiced biscuit from Lotus Bakeries have recently been added to the intangible heritage list of the city of Brussels. According to the Brussels heritage cell, the tradition of making real speculoos dates back to the 18th century.

In Brussels, around thirty bakers and pastry chefs still make the cookies in the traditional way, often in the period around Sinterklaas, a typical Belgian and Dutch traditional feast where the predecessor of today's Santa Claus is celebrated on December 6. But speculoos is also a very popular gift at Christmas and New Year. Then they are made in different shapes and figures.

Picture by Pixabay

The request to include speculoos to the Brussels heritage list came from Maison Dandoy, the oldest biscuit baker in Belgium, with roots dating back to 1828. But also in the rest of Belgium, making speculoos is an old tradition.

Picture by Lotus Bakeries

All over the world, speculoos is now known as that little Lotus biscuit that people often get with their coffee. You also get it on many US flights. Lotus Bakeries has recently decided to change the name speculoos to Biscoff because for them that would be a better name to handle the Belgian cookie internationally.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The castle that became famous in Hollywood

Image
Belgium has a lot of castles, actually, it has the most castles of all European countries. They come in all shapes and sizes. But there is one castle that strikes every imagination, castle Nottebohm. Located in the north of Antwerp, in the village of Brecht, this remarkable building seems to be escaped from some fantastic Hollywood movie or even more a Pixar animation cartoon. The design of the house is done in a very strange way, in an eclectic style incorporating elements from the neo-Flemish Renaissance, the traditional brick and sandstone style and the cottage style, all combined. Architect Ernest Pilgrims draw the plans for the castle. It was built in 1834 by the family Nottebohm as a summerhouse. The family used it till 1943 when the German army occupied it in the second World War. After the war, the family didn't use it a lot anymore and in 1950 they rent the castle as a hotel and restaurant. Later the company who rented the castle went broke and the family had the plan to
Read more

Belgian kids got to drink beer during their school lunch

Image
There are almost 800 different kinds of beer in Belgium. One kind was very popular till the70's, it was even given to kids at school during their lunch break. Beer to kids? You must be kidding! Well, let's go a bit further into this. The beers we are talking about were so-called table beers, a kind of beer that was specially made for people who can't drink alcohol. So it's was a kind of alcohol-free beer, a kind, because there was some alcohol in it. between 1 and 4 percent alcohol. The most popular table beer was Piedboeuf, it had 1.1 percent alcohol in it and there was a lot of sugar added to make it as sweet as Coca-Cola. A good marketing strategy made that it was well distributed in almost all schools in Belgium. The reason was that it would be very healthy for them, because of the natural ingredients and of course the sugar. It would make them grow fast and strong. It would even be good for pregnant women and for women that were breastfeeding their baby'
Read more

How the Belgians founded New York

Image
In order to avoid any confusion in this story, it is important to know that in the sixteenth century, the Netherlands covered a part of northern France and Lorraine, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the present Netherlands. Its inhabitants were called the Belgians, and the maps represented the country in the shape of a lion: the "Leo Belgicus". Besides, numerous maps from the sixteenth century showed this territory under the name of Belgium. The latter failed into disuse for the benefit of the Netherlands and only reappeared in 1789 on the occasion of the first Belgian revolution. In 1831 Belgium became an independent country. Today Belgium is a lot smaller and is divided into two big regions mostly based on the language they speak in that particular region. In the north, there is Flanders where they speak Flemish (Dutch) and in the south, there is the Walloon part where they speak French. Almost in the center and between the two parts is the region of the capital Brussels.
Read more