Bread recipe

Dry:

• 1 kg wholemeal flour (or plain flour or mixes thereof, whatever you like)
• 4 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 100 g raisins
• 25 g cinnamon

Wet:

• ~1/2 litre of apple juice
• 4 teaspoons of vinegar.

1. Mix the solids together.
2. Preheat oven to 200°C.
3. Add the vinegar to the apple juice.
4. Roll in juice gradually until all of the flour mix is wetted, but not slimy looking sludge. 
5. Throw a quarter of the mix onto a section of baking paper. 
6. Roll the baking paper up so that it's a crude looking cylinder.
7. Place it on the tray in a way that it wont unroll while the dough bakes.  

For me, this is enough for 4 loaves of bread.

I use a fork and bowel to mix it all together - it spares me losing the sticky dough on my hands.

Now, what is nice about the baking paper is that it helps lock in the carbon dioxide that is going to be generated while it bakes. Which is critical for maximum fluffiness. You end up with two rough looking ends because they are exposed, and a smooth curved surface, where the baking paper touches the dough.

Cooking time:
Until it is visibly steaming (when you open the oven door and steam rolls out and it smells deliciously edible). Essentially, the perfect time is when most of the water has been boiled off, that the loaf is almost dry. Something like 20-30 minutes.

You can keep the dry mix for a couple of days, but once you add the liquid and mix it up, the dough has to go into the oven quickly (<5mins). Otherwise more of the carbon dioxide will be released during baking.

Alternative options:

Instead of baking soda/vinegar: try 8 teaspoons of baking powder; 4 teaspoons of baking soda with 4 teaspoons of cream of tartar; use buttermilk instead of the vinegar and apple juice (roughly 1/2 litre until the dough is damp), any other juice, lemon juice in water (say half a lemon to 1/2 litre of water), use normal milk with the vinegar (either add immediately or let it stand for an hour [as an engineer I would prefer to stir it in this time just to have a consistent and faster souring] while to make your own buttermilk).

Add in about 80 g of finely diced fresh ginger - the raisins and the tart ginger provide a fantastic flavour where they complement each other - I haven't used powdered ginger yet.

Dry some fruits yourself. 4-5 apples cut into small chips (wet size ~1-2 x 1-2 cm) are enough for this amount of dough (150 g or so when dry). Dry in the oven at 140°C with the door open a crack and, if possible a fan blowing across it. Dry until crispy, but not burned, . The apples lose a serious amount of moisture in the drying process (about 60-66% of their wet mass). In my oven it takes about 3 hours for this, but keep going until they are crispy and don't smell burnt or taste like carbon. I generally peel them beforehand. I am partial to pink ladies for this. I haven't used cooking apples yet, and I'm not inclined to.

Add some oatmeal, nuts, shredded All Bran and/or a bit of sugar if you like (you could drop large sugar crystals on the baking paper before you throw the dough on it and roll it up.

Much like my cookie recipe, beyond the bare bones recipe (flour, source of carbon dioxide [baking soda/vinegar, etc.], and a source of water to dampen the dough), you can do what ever you like with it.

Experiment  and see what works best for you.

As a parting thought:
Is carbon dioxide generation critical, or just the simplest/most convenient one to do?

As long as the by-products aren't toxic and are tasty, any reaction that produces a gas could do the job. Although... something heavy like carbon dioxide is probably best because it has a lower diffusivity than something like nitrogen. So it is more likely to stay in the dough.

I wonder what would happen if you had an oxygen or hydrogen producing reaction in there...

Twaalfwoorden deel drie

And here it is, the ultimate part in my thought provoking series⁰ on Dutch words (imagine it’s David Attenborough saying it).

9. Bij

This a handy word to have:

·      Er is iemand bij = “There is someone (else) there”/”there is an additional person there.”

·      Ik heb X erbij = “I have it here/with me]”

·      Bijleren means to learn something extra, i.e. something incidentally learned, something that you’d pick up during your day.

The reason I like bij as an modifier to words or sentences is that it’s such an economical way to say that someone is beside you/with you/accompanying you, or that you have some. Or to say that you picked something up. It’s like the linguistic equivalent of a vintage sports car (think original Bond Aston Martin), whereas equivalent English approaches are 80s and 90s era sports cars – kitch and cool in their own way, but sometimes seem to have too much going on.

10. Eenvoudig

Combining two words to get another word, is something I relish seeing in Dutch (and also in German). The meaning of the new word is something easy to infer, intuitive even. They are often built up from common/day-to-day words. Such an elegant synthesis of literal-mindedness and abstraction. Of which this is a wonderful example...¹

Simple. Een (one) and voudig (from vouwen “fold”). Eenvoudig is hands down my favourite etymological discovery in Dutch. I let out a gleeful yelp when I realised which words were the parents of this one. It is an example of an abstract concept being used as the word to represent that concept...² there aren’t many things simpler than a single fold!

11. Woordenschat

Vocabulary. Woorden (words) and schat (treasure). It strikes such a powerful chord… “word treasure.” For me, at least, when I consider this compound word, it gets me to take a moment and consider the words I have learned. To admire them, each an ingot of gold or a precious stone. Compare that to “vocabulary”; Just a bundle of syllables. How… how forgetable.

And of course, to finish with a chuckle.

12.                  Hoeren en uren

Prostitutes and hours… A tricky one for me is the distinction between oe and uu. The first should be pronounced like the like the "oo" in raccoon. The second is similar to the u in “ubiquitous (the first one - it certainly seems to be everywhere in that word...)- but stretch it out to make it a long sound.

Dutch speakers are unforgiving about vowel sounds, the distinction between them is more important than in English.³ It is coming along, but I do have my off moments…

I was chatting at lunch about the hours I spent relaxing in the canteen in college with the lads. They looked at me in surprise and asked me to repeat myself. I did. It turned out what I had said sounded far closer to “prostitutes in the canteen”, all because of a mix-up between those two sounds. We still chuckle about that one. :)

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⁰It certainly provoked my thoughts.ⁱ  :) ¹ Because of the influence of the Normans (French-speaking conquerers of Britain back a 1,000 years ago), many technical/scientific terms follow Romantic naming conventions of using the Latin or Greek.

² Talk about meta! It’s wheels within wheels up in here! If I didn’t want to finish on a laugh, this would have been the kicker!

³ Consonants are kings in the Queen’s. [EDIT: A colleague of mine challenged me in this. And I had to concede that, being an English speaker, I have a much broader experience and exposure to the manifold ways that English can be mis-pronounced; Compared to a Dutch speaker - with significantly fewer foreigners learning it let alone trying to speak it - the skill of inferring what is actually meant by garbled syllables is not as well honed]

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ⁱA friend of mine asked me why I wrote my blog in the first place, if I cared that people wouldn’t get it or thought that something on it was stupid.

I told him that I do it because I get a kick out of it. I’d be lying if I said that I didn't care when people like it or read it...^a,b I get a lot out of putting a post together – in terms of amusement, learning something new,^c and having epiphanies about myself and the world around me.

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^aAs John Donne said:

No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main…^d

^bI mean when they enjoy reading it as well as “liking” it on Facebook.

^cThere is a whole lot of bijleren going on up in here!

^dThe rest of the poem goes on to talk about death and how as a part of mankind each death diminishes us individually… the poem is bookended by two famous lines, the one I quote above about the penninsular status of conscious existence and “And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.” As you can see, I am cherry-picking because clearly Mr Donne was referring to something deeper than acceptance and validation. I recommend reading his Wikipedia article; riveting.

Twaalf woorden deel twee

Welcome back to a recap of my fun and fascinating journey with/in/through(?) Dutch.. (it sounds much better when you imagine it’s Gene Wilder saying it).

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4.   Ik heb X nodig/Jij hoeft dat niet te X

In Dutch, there isn’t a direct translation to “I need ...”. They typically say the former phrase above, which literally translates as: "I have X necessary”. Or sometimes it is: Het is nodig dat... = “It is necessary that...”.

The phrase above translates as: “You need not X...”. The latter does phrase include the verb closest to “need” in Dutch: hoeven, which is used in reference to people acting/doing, or more precisely not doing something... Apparently, it is never used in the positive (usually mogen, kunnen or moeten are used to indicate what one "may", "can" and "must" do).

I’ve always considered Dutch as some kind of cross between English and German. So it’s interesting that need (brauchen in German) isn’t in Dutch.

5.   Zitten

Sit. This verb does double duty. Zitten is often used to indicate where someone is situated or what kind of situation they are in, e.g. someone is in a meeting (hij zit in een vergadering), someone is in another country (momenteel zit hij in Ierland), someone is having trouble (hij zit in problemen).

6.   Fout/Zout/Wouter

Here's something that's just a curiosity.¹ While listening to an audiobook, A Spymaster's Guide to Learning Languages, I learnt that the within a family of languages there are often sounds that change consistently from one language to another.

Above we have the Dutch for “Fault (Wrong)”, “Salt” “Walter”. Excluding the spelling change for fault, the vowel sounds are the same for these words in each language. So “ou” in Dutch can be an “al” in English. Oud to old is, unfortunately, a bit of a stretch, but I am just putting it out there.

7.   Verschrikkelijk

It means terrible, appalling, horrible… which is strangely appropriate, because I had a devil of a time pronouncing it.

·      The s has to be an s, not an sh.²

·      The ch is a similar guttural sound to the aforementioned g.

·      And bookended by rolling rs.

Now. Each of those sounds has to be pronounced clearly, smoothly and in relatively quick succession. Vibrating tongue against the roof of the mouth (r), point of tongue against the rough of the mouth (s), guttural sound from the throat (ch), vibrating tongue against the roof of the mouth (r)… Much like morgen it is a great word for working on some critical sounds in Dutch.

8.   Voorstellen

It comes up a couple of times in the list; I like the simplicity of Dutch that there are some words that, based on context, tacking on a preposition or combining two words together, adopt a new meaning or nuance. There's an earthy, solid and elegant feel to much of the language. Sometimes English feels like porcelain on the tongue, like you have to be gentle with the words or they will break. Here's a fine example of what I mean.
Suggest or propose. Other than direct translations for those, in phrase, it would be used where “I think that...” (Ik stel voor dat…), is used in English. It has a more rooted feel than “suggest”, but not as hoity-toity as “propose.” When I say it, it’s like picking up a hammer to fix something, like working with your hands.

Plus it is a sterling example of prepositions modifying verbs.³ It’s a nice concept, no need for fancy words. Although, on closer inspection, this is identical to pro-pose. Huh… I never noticed that before.

So there is the end of the latest section... Stay tuned for the final 4 things about Dutch that I find most remarkable!

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¹Let's face it, the world is a curious, sublimely intricate, but simple place, and you are here to hear me give my take on it.

² I keep slipping, or should I say shlipping

³A characteristic of Germanic languages, whereby a preposition (A) modifies the meaning of the verb (B). If it is separable it is placed at the end of the sentence so AB in a normal sentence becomes: subject B object A. But other times it is not separable such as with ver- and ont-, then there are various exceptions for the other prepositions, which make sense, because there are some things too important to wait until the end of sentence to have the fun meaning of. Am I right?

It is an efficient piece of linguistic trickery that makes use of fewer verbs. And for ~50% of the time, there is a pattern/sense to the effect that a preposition has on different verbs.ⁱ

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ⁱMy Dutch teacher generally has a very long think before ever saying that there is a rule for anything in Dutch. In all our classes together, she has only given the nod to one of my queries.^a The main rule appears to be that at least 25% of the time there are exceptions to a rule. Quite often she discourages me from looking for patterns and rules.

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^aIt was about the distinction in application between behandelen and aankunnen. The first literally means to handle, but it can also be used figuratively, when you talk about how you treat people or how you handle something in a figurative sense. The second means to cope or manage something. And the line in the sand is that the first is only applied in the figurative sense to things that you can physically touch with your hands, whereas aankunnen is for abstractions that you cannot touch, e.g. a situation, a challenge, etc. Naturally, I am open to correction from this, since I am not a native speaker, and because our classes are always in Dutch, it is possible I have mis-interpreted my teacher's explanation.

Twaalf woorden (twelve words) deel een

One for every month

As one can gather from previous posts (scares, a year in numbers), I have a penchant for listing and evaluating things. So, to commemorate my first year as an expat, I sat down and had a think about the words and structures in Dutch that I think are fantastic. I'll do my best to expound on my reasons.

1.    Morgen

A lovely word. Before I could ever say anything else in Dutch, I could say that at the beginning and end of my day.

In Dutch, it means morning and tomorrow; typically preceded by goede (good) or tot (‘til). Here are the things it has going for it…

In Dutch:

·    The rs tend to be rolling ones, produced by the tongue vibrating against the roof of the mouth.

·       In Dutch, the g is a guttural/soft; like coughing up a furball

·    The e at the end is known as a duffe e, so it's a sharp and short exhalation, like the vowel in "bet."

And

·       You say it multiple times during the day.

So, three key parts of Dutch pronunciation regularly used; Mana from Heaven!

2.   Foefelen

It's a Flemish word, that is used commonly in relation to the Belgian pastime of tax avoidance. It means to fudge; to do something using shortcuts; cutting corners; to not follow official guidelines, or standard practises; taking the change on a split bill.
I like this for two reasons: It is one of the first words I learnt from my friends at work. We use it when teasing each other. And I think it has wonderful succinctness and onomatopoeia. ¹

3.   Er

Here we have a doozy of a thing. It is a Chimera; taking on many of the roles that there, here, that, those & these fulfill in English:

·      Counting something that has been referenced already (Ik heb er drie = "of which I have three")

·       A substitute for a place (Ik ben er = I am here/there [depending on the place in question])

·      In certain cases, a substitute for a noun (Er zijn mensen binnen = "There are people within/inside"; -”Ik ga dansen.” -”Geniet ervan.” = -”I am going dancing” “Enjoy that/get enjoyment from it”)

·  Which smoothly leads me to another of it's quirks. Er joins prepositions to form words like ervan, ervoor, erover, etc. = thereof, for that, thereover, etc. In English, it is a rather archaic thing, usually relegated to legalese ("Where were you the night thereof?”)

·   The final one, the one I had to look up because I don't use it regularly at all, is er in passive sentences: Er was niks gezegd = "There was nothing said"

It really helped me get into thinking in Dutch. It’s such a marvelous, nuanced, Jack-of-all-trades.

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¹You'll probably have to read the fine print, but by being on my blog, you have implicitly “asked me.” Deal with it.