For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By OCB
#1893330
Pete L wrote:
Mz Hedy wrote:At least it's given the newspapers something else to write about. I blame the internet - 30 years ago (or even less) it'd the authr of this original piece would need to get it through several layers of editor before it got published, now it just goes out on a blog - itself a word which didn't exist a few years ago. Is the pendulum beginning to swing towards the side of the tabloid anti-PC brigade.

Anyway, when I can next get across to Belgium, I'm going to order a curry-ketchup on my next bag of 'frieten' (which are not the same as English 'chips' or the French 'frites', and most certainly not the same as the American 'fries'. :wink:


I'm off to Belgium and Netherlands next month.

I've had chips in De Hems at Flyin' Dutch suggestion which I guess will be the Dutch version interpreted by the last random Central European left cooking here after Brexit.

Any more detail on the differences between English, Dutch and Belgian fried potato products?


:shock:

Plenty of variation within the UK, without involving Belgians or Nederlanders!

Who, for instance, still uses beef dripping/tallow in the UK?

Who still advertises "New Potatoes here" just after harvest...and has everyone thinking "wtf do you serve the rest of the year?" :shock:

Belgian "frites" - there are 2 or 3 well known places you could choose from; it mainly depends on your travel plans.

Are they hugely better than others?

Actually - sometimes yes.

Having been in Belgium for more or less 20 years now, I can honestly say - the frites thing is important, and there are well known places to get the "best".*

The locals, however, would much prefer if you remembered the visit for:
The chocolate
The beer
The lacework
The biscuits
The museums (who often sell all of the above at inflated prices etc)

*edit to say, I exclude the apparent local fascination with "smothering everything with mayonnaise"....ref Pulp Fiction and Paris, as the local habit in and around Brussels etc is half ketchup and and half mayonnaise, mix it until it becomes nearly a pink paste - then dunk the frites in it.

Then are recent converts to "chips and cheese" though....except they use Chimay cheese with bacon bits etc.

I should maybe introduce them to "frites et bouillant"...aka "chips and gravy" :lol:
Last edited by OCB on Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
By Pete L
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1893331
I shall call for advice after emerging blackened and starving from the depths. :D

Ghent, Ypres and Maastricht appear to be on the agenda. Only usually I just see the inside of a very large shed, in this case filled with weaving machinery spares.
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By OCB
#1893335
Pete L wrote:I shall call for advice after emerging blackened and starving from the depths. :D

Ghent, Ypres and Maastricht appear to be on the agenda. Only usually I just see the inside of a very large shed, in this case filled with weaving machinery spares.


:thumright:

PM me the dates, would be a pleasure to meet up!

Gent (local lingo is Flemish...Ghent spelling is French) is an underrated gem, especially for Gentse Feesten.

Ieper - aka Ypres. Bliddly nightmare if nobody tells you the locals changed the name to Flemish on all the roadsigns etc. Last post at Meningate - if you have a soul, be there are least once in your life.

Maastricht...meh, there's some not bad shopping in the area.
User avatar
By JAFO
#1893340
T6Harvard wrote:I saw the news report about the little sweets and I noticed another change they have made - The packing no longer refers to being made in Yorkshire. Were M&S afraid they would be accused of promoting racial superiority?


No, they were afraid that people would find out that they were actually supposed to be wine gums but the people of Yorkshire refused to give that much away.
User avatar
By Rob P
#1893362
OCB wrote:Last post at Meningate - if you have a soul, be there are least once in your life.


Definitely :salut:

I must have attended this ceremony four or five times now and it is just as moving every time. The German occupation put a stop to it. It was started again on the evening of the very day on which that end of the town was liberated, to the accompaniment of gunfire within a few hundred metres.

Rob P
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By OCB
#1893410
Rob P wrote:
OCB wrote:Last post at Meningate - if you have a soul, be there are least once in your life.


Definitely :salut:

I must have attended this ceremony four or five times now and it is just as moving every time. The German occupation put a stop to it. It was started again on the evening of the very day on which that end of the town was liberated, to the accompaniment of gunfire within a few hundred metres.

Rob P


I probably engaged about 4 neurones when I posted that about the Meningate. I didn’t actually mean it to sound so flippant, sorry.

Of the hundreds (possibly thousands) of battlefields/cemeteries/memorials I’ve visited as an adult - it’s the one that really “gets to me”.

The “gate” memorial is breathtaking when you get up close - for the wrong reason, just on it’s own.

The daily ceremony is also something unique.

Having been there on a sunny summer’s day with the prime minister of some Eastern European govt paying tribute - it certainly has gravitas.

Having been there on a miserable dreichit winter’s day, and only a handful of school kids doing the honours - and clearly so proud to do so…yeah….
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By Rob P
#1893430
I didn't read it as flippant in any way.

To me it read as sound advice. :thumleft:

Rob P
By LowNSlow1
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1893692
The last time I went to the Menin Gate ceremony there were a few coachloads of mid-teen British school kids laughing and chattering as kids do. I wondered if they would appreciate the ceremony when the bugler started.

I needn't have been concerned. Some of the kids started reading the lists of the missing soldiers and started to see their family names and a gradual hush spread over the crowd as they saw the deaths of probable relatives carved into the stone. By the time the bugler blew the first note he had their undivided attention. I felt very proud of those kids even though I didn't know them from Adam!
Rob P, skydriller, kanga and 2 others liked this
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By eltonioni
#1951479
Posting without comment as it should be obvious.

By Bill McCarthy
#1951527
This is going to create a whole new “industry” - transistor jails, sports etc. etc.
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