Apr-2013
Best food and beers to taste in Belgium
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Gaufres de Liège et de Bruxelles
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Moules-frites
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Pekets
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Bouteilles de peket
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Chocolat belge
Well known for its famous mussels and fries, as well as its beers, Belgium has a lot of other specialties. Here is a listing of them.
Taste the Belgian Food !
- French fries with fricandelle from a Friterie or Fritkot. Note that there is a large number of sauces for the fries and taste some of them! Also taste the special meat. Nobody knows from what it is made, but it’s delicious: Fricandelle (nature), Viandelle (recovered with a crusty layer) or Poulycroc (with chicken).
- Brussels waffles (known worldwide as Belgian waffles) and Liege waffles (but you can find it everywhere in Belgium), which are the real Belgian waffles with a more consistent paste and chunks of sugar inside.
- The Boulettes Liégeoises, meatballs with a typically sweet and sour sauce with Liege syrup.
- The Waterzooi: chicken or fish soup with vegetables and potatoes
- The Carbonnades Flamandes : pieces of meat boiled in beer sauce and onions, spices, vinegar, often sweet
- The Filet Américain: steak tartare
- Ham and sausage from Ardenne
- Shrimp and tomatoes (Tomates-crevettes): tomatoes stuffed with small shrimps and mayonnaise
- In the right season we also find the Flemish asparagus : the sauce is made from butter, eggs and parsley
- The Pêches au thon: peaches filled with tuna
- Speculoos: small biscuit with brown sugar
- Pralines: small pieces of chocolates filled with a special cream. There is a lot of different kinds of pralines. The best known are the Manons, with white chocolate outside, from the shop Leonidas. Seriously, have a try, it’s delicious !
- Craquelins: brioche stuffed whith chunks of sugar
- Cramique: brioche bread with raisins
- Babeluttes: caramel with butter which are found only in the sea
- Kissing Malmedy: meringues filled with cream
- Cheese: Herve, Maredsous, Passchendaele, Chimay, Nazareth, Orval and Brussels.
- Cuperdon: a candy in the form of a cone. If you by good ones (more expensive), they are still smelting inside… It’s delicious!
Unlike France, we do not serve free water jugs in restaurants, you must pay your water bottle.
… And of course the BELGIAN beers !
Beer is the national drink! Belgium has no fewer than 100 breweries.
FRUITED BEERS
- Kriek: beer with cherry, very popular among girls
- Framboise: Lambic with raspberry
- Rodenbach
- Pêcheresse: beer with peach
TRAPPIST BEERS
- Orval: one of the best beers brewed by Trappist monks
- Chimay
- Westmalle
- Rochefort
- Westvleteren
BEERS FROM ABBEYS
- Leffe
- Maredsous
- Grimbergen
- Aflligem
OTHER UNMISSABLE BEERS
- Hoegarden : white beer, very common
- Duvel
- Delirium
- Kwak
- Bush, sometimes mixed with a Pêcheresse
- Chouffe
- Vieux Temps
OTHER ALCOHOLS
Péket or Genevièvre: strong alcohol with a fruit taste. You can try the taste “Cuperdon”, which is the most typical as Cuperdon is a special candy in Belgium.
Maitrank: Arlon cocktail made with white wine, brandy, woodland plants (woodruff) and oranges. As its name suggests (Mai = May), it can only be prepared one time in a year where the woodruff plants grow in the woods. This homebrew is highly appreciated in the south of the country near the border with Luxembourg. You have to serve it fresh with a slice of orange.
comment this post
There are quite a few loose ends in this article. For instance Todenbach is not a fruited beEr. Raspberry is nod made of lambic. As for the waffles, though Liege waffles are more common now it Used to be the other way round: The real ones are the brussels wafels and have almost disappeared From foods talls. This is due that the dOugh can’t be me in advance.
Hi Kate ! Thanks for your comments.
The Rodenbach is a Flanders red beer, which has a strong fruit flavor. The “Framboise”, for example Lindemans Framboise, is a Raspberry lambic. About the waffles, as we explained, what is called “belgian waffle” everywhere in the world are the waffles from Brussels. But for any belgian, like us, the real Belgian waffle is the waffle from Liege. It’s the one we eat the most, you can find it everywhere in the country, and it’s a national pride for us. That’s why we can say they are the real belgian waffles.