"cuisine bruxelloise"

"Upgrading the Local. Belgian Cuisine in Global Waves" by peter scholliers and anneke geyzen


Belgium has an excellent culinary reputation. Some
even claim that this small country is “Europe’s best kept
culinary secret.”1 The cuisine is characterized by a combination
of hearty German plates, refined French dishes, and
many typically Belgian ingredients and cooking methods,
such as Belgian endives and preparations with beer. Belgium’s
culinary secrets can easily be discovered in many restaurants
in Antwerp, Ghent, Liège, and, especially, Brussels.

A look at the outdoor menu of one such Brussels restaurant
(above) is instructive. Patrons are lured by Belgian
specials including Flemish beef stew (simmered for hours in
Gueuze, a sour beer produced by spontaneous fermentation);
rabbit in Kriek (Gueuze with cherries); waterzooi, a soup-like

dish of vegetables with lobster or chicken (the name literally
means “stew-in-water”); potato salad with bacon and beans;
sole in butter; and beef with cherries. Another Brussels restaurant
recommends other plats belges typiques: meatballs
in tomato sauce, sauerkraut à la Bruxelloise, and stoemp
(potatoes mashed with a vegetable) served with country sausage.
Such dishes are widespread, appearing in both popular
and fancy restaurants offering more sophisticated versions.
This contemporary emphasis on Belgian dishes is striking,
all the more so because between 1950 and 1990 hardly any
plats belges typiques or spécialités belges were presented. So,
where did these dishes come from?
Identity Construction
Before addressing this question we must take a brief excursion
into the relationship between food and collective
sentiments.2 Some social researchers claim that food is
utterly central to who we are, to our identity. “Who,” here,
does not refer to the individual but to a community that

may be small (the household), large (a neighborhood),
or immense (a nation). French sociologist Claude Fischler
uses three concepts to explore this idea further: the omnivore
paradox, the principle of incorporation, and the
culinary order.3 The omnivore paradox refers to the fact
that humans may eat very diversely and need to do so
for physiological reasons, but because they are afraid of
change they hesitate when confronted with new foods.
This phenomenon is crucial, according to Fischler, because
an individual’s customary food choices allow for incorporation
into a community even as they exclude the Other
(Fischler’s second concept). Fischler’s third concept, of
the culinary order, offers a solution to the problem of the
omnivore paradox and incorporation into a community: it
refers to the classification of food into categories (nonedible,
healthy, festive, etc.) as well as to the way it is prepared—

in other words, to the cuisine. These three stages lead to the
construction of communities based on food rather than on,
for example, religion or language, which is why Germans
are referred to as “Krauts” and Frenchmen as “Frogs,” indicating
their allegedly typical national foods.
Note that these two examples refer to labels bestowed by
the Other, which touches upon a complementary feature of
the relationship between food and identity construction—
namely, that identity construction necessarily operates via
both the Self and the Other. An interesting example of this
relationship is provided by the Hungarian dish goulash.4 In
the 1780s, in an attempt to inflame nationalist sentiment
for independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the
Hungarian elite deliberately chose a peasant beef stew with
paprika (a cheap substitute for real pepper) as the country’s
“national dish.” Two intriguing developments occurred.
First, the peasants of the Hungarian steppe readily adopted
this dish and its name; second, the Austrian elite also
adopted this novelty, making goulash a fashionable dish
in Vienna. Only then did the dish gain wider significance,
although it took nearly a century before the world learned
about goulash and its Hungarian connection.
The First Wave: France’s Hegemony (1800–1900)
The Hungarian example emphasizes the need for reciprocal
identity construction (with both “us” and “them” recognizing
food as typifying a nation) and for a dish that goes beyond
social and regional borders to unite all people. Did Belgium
go through a similar process of identity construction?
To understand our question fully, the reader should
know that the Kingdom of Belgium emerged only in
1830; it had no prior shared history. Until 1830 the territory
had been part of the Spanish Empire (1579–1713), the
Austrian Empire (1713–1794), France (1795–1814), and the
United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815–1830). In addition,
local rulers had governed various bits and pieces of
land, which meant that the young nation retained strong
local feelings. Moreover, in 1830 Belgium had few common
features that could promote unity: in the North, Flemish
was spoken, but in the South French was the language;
agriculture predominated in the North, while the Industrial
Revolution transformed large parts of the South. After
unification, common ground was sought in the monarchy,
the Catholic Church, ideology (art, history, and politics
celebrating Belgium), and, especially, in the movement
for independence from the Netherlands and France.
Might food also have been used to create a Belgian
national identity?

Although we examined numerous sources, we were
unable to find any national dish that might have united all
nineteenth-century Belgians. Naturally, local ingredients
(such as Brussels sprouts) and local preparations (like beef
stewed in beer) were used, though not to build nationalist
sentiment. Keeping the Hungarian example in mind, we
wondered whether Belgian elites might similarly have tried
to create a national dish, but there is absolutely no evidence
of it. The Belgian aristocracy was unconditionally oriented
toward the fancy French cuisine that arose in Parisian restaurants
and maisons bourgeoises around 1800, with which
the name of the chef Marie-Antoine Carême (1784–1833) is
associated. Brussels restaurants copied Parisian foodways to
the letter. French chefs settled in Belgian towns, Belgians
took up apprenticeships in France, and Belgian cooks imitated
French haute cuisine. By 1870 travelers’ guides were
waxing enthusiastic about Belgian restaurants, stressing that
one could eat as well in Belgium as in the better Parisian
restaurants, while paying much less.5 Thus, rather than forging
bonds among all Belgians, the Belgian elite aspired to
be part of the international rich and famous.
In 1880 Belgium commemorated its fiftieth anniversary
by organizing an international exhibition in Brussels. This
event was a perfect occasion to promote Belgian food to an
international audience, but hardly anything was done. The
exhibition guide recommended the Taverne des Brasseries
and the Boulangerie Nationale for beer and pastry, respectively.
An advertisement appeared for Restaurant du Lac,
serving French cuisine, and Restaurant Italien, owned by a
Belgian. Were beer and pastry sufficient to create a Belgian
identity? We doubt it. Around 1880 Belgian beer may have
had a passable reputation, but it could hardly compete with
English and especially German beer, while pastry simply
imitated classical French pâtisserie.
National Reactions (1900–1940)
Three decades later, at the 1910 Brussels World Fair, Belgian
food was presented as tasty, out of the ordinary, and worthy
of haute cuisine. A French journalist writing for the Parisian
newspaper Le Figaro Illustré described the exhibition,
emphasizing Belgium’s excellent cuisine and the outstanding
reputation of the Bruxellois as gourmets.6 True, such
observations could have been read earlier; however, in this
case the writer referred only to Belgian specialties and did
not even mention French cuisine. His article was a tribute
to regional cuisines, praising such dishes as rabbit with
prunes, beef stewed in beer, and waterzooi, all of which he
labeled “Belgian.” These dishes had been typical among

the Belgian petite bourgeoisie for quite some time already,
but now, for the first time, these regional specialties were
presented as national symbols. And so a discrete national
cuisine with no connection to the French was identified.
Beginning in the 1900s, and increasingly in the 1920s
and 1930s, Belgian regional ingredients and foodways made
their way into Belgian haute cuisine and began to be disseminated
abroad. Thus one finds menus noting that the
oysters come from Ostend, the asparagus from Malines, and
the rooster from Brussels; many dishes were prepared à la
mode de chez nous or à la flamande. This “national turn” in
fancy Belgian cuisine also appeared in restaurants advertising
bourgeois cuisine à la Bruxelloise, as well as in travelers’
guides. The height of Belgitude in haute cuisine occurred
in the women’s magazine La cuisine et la femme in 1935.
The French author, Paul Bouillard, owner of the elegant
restaurant Au Filet de Sole in Brussels, wrote: “Carbonnade
flamande, one of the most popular specialties because it
belongs to ‘low-cost gastronomy,’ is a true national dish.”7
Prior to 1914, no dish would have been identified as such.
Several reasons explain this shift. Under the influence
of the great chef Auguste Escoffier (1846–1935) French
haute cuisine was codified and reinvigorated, and work in
the kitchen was completely reorganized. A more natural
taste was appreciated, and food was plated before it left
the kitchen, in the Russian style. These innovations were
labeled “nouvelle cuisine.” Along with them came the
discovery of regional foodways. Of course, local specialties
had always been part of French haute cuisine, even if
rarely acknowledged. But Escoffier celebrated them. Along
with foods from Provence, Brittany, Burgundy, and elsewhere,
Belgian, especially Brussels cuisine, became part
of the larger French canon. In 1938 the famous Larousse
gastronomique consecrated the position of Belgian cuisine
within French haute cuisine: “One of Belgium’s national
dishes most appreciated by the French and the Flemings is
waterzooi with chicken prepared in the manner of Ghent.”8
Other reasons for this development are to be found
within Belgium itself. As the bourgeoisie grew in social
significance, they sought to adopt elements of so-called
high culture even as they created their own. Fancy food
and Belgian national sentiments were part of this process.
Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai has noted that the middle
classes play a crucial role in creating a national cuisine
through the diffusion of “national dishes” via cookbooks
and women’s magazines.9 According to Appadurai, the
promotion of a single dish, ingredient, or method of preparation
as “national” may be sufficient to create a national
cuisine. That is precisely what happened in Belgium in

the 1920s. Bourgeois families not only read about the
upgrading of Belgian cuisine, they were also able to taste
this cuisine in many restaurants, at various price ranges.
World War i also contributed to the upsurge in Belgian
food. During the German occupation, which lasted for
over fifty months, most Belgians suffered from starvation.
International aid campaigns put Belgium on the map, while
German atrocities led to unparalleled nationalist sentiments.
A tendency to favor all things Belgian was evident on several
different levels of cultural life, including cuisine. In the
postwar years thousands of foreigners and locals wanted to
taste real Belgian food, in this way claiming solidarity with
the violated nation.
The Second Wave: Globalization (1960–1980s)
Around 1970 Paul Bocuse and other French chefs launched
a new nouvelle cuisine that was lighter and more sophisticated
than the haute cuisine of the 1960s, which had been
characterized by rich sauces and extensive preparatory work.
After Carême and Escoffier, Bocuse represented a third
international wave of haute cuisine, and his style reinforced
French culinary hegemony for the next thirty years. In fact,
his innovations restored some of Escoffier’s basic precepts
regarding taste, freshness, and simplicity. New was the
meticulous way in which food was presented on the plate,
and the moderate use of exotic ingredients like cilantro.
The nouvelle cuisine of the 1970s coincided with great
interest in foreign foods. European chefs traveled the world
and were particularly enthusiastic about Asian foodways.
However, exotic, or ethnic, cuisines appeared in Europe via
other routes, too. Ethnic restaurants had existed in larger
European towns since the nineteenth century, but after
1950 foreign restaurants multiplied quickly. Tourist guides
to Brussels, for example, mention 19 percent non-Belgian
restaurants in the 1960s, 28 percent in the 1980s, and 39
percent in 1995.10 In Belgium, Italian and other European
restaurants (Greek, Spanish, Hungarian, Portuguese) were
the first to be established, but they were inexpensive and
not very refined. In the 1970s Asian restaurants burgeoned
(especially Chinese, but also Southeast Asian and Japanese),
including some that were considered highly sophisticated
and expensive. Exotic influences also appeared in the socalled
fusion cuisine served in Belgian restaurants, leading
to menus composed of such dishes as North Sea shrimp
croquettes, tagine of lamb, and tiramisu.
Home cooks also began to mix ethnic elements into
their food. Belgian cookbooks from the 1970s testify to this
seeming internationalization of domestic cooking and

eating. Ons Kookboek (“Our Cookbook”), for example, first
published in 1927 and considered “a household necessity
in Flanders,”11 dedicated an entire section to exotic dishes
in its 1972 edition. The 1999 edition expanded on this
approach by publishing a plentiful selection of recipes from
all over the world.12 Women’s magazines also picked up
on the trend and began publishing exotic recipes regularly.
From the 1970s on the monthly publication of the Women
Farmers’ Association took its readers on culinary journeys
to Italy, Greece, Spain, and elsewhere, offering recipes for
foreign dishes. Asian foodways were also presented, with
several articles on the art of using a wok at home.13 This
ethnic trend was further supported by supermarkets, which
began to sell an increasingly diverse selection of ingredients.
As in the restaurants, this change came in two waves: in the
1960s, simple Italian and European ingredients were sold
(pasta became incredibly popular); in the 1990s affordable
foodstuffs from all over the world appeared in shops.
Local Responses (1980s–The Present)
The internationalization of Belgian cuisine (and of
European cuisine in general) had many causes: rising purchasing
power, the expansion of tourism, the ever-growing
diversity of foreign foods, the desire for novelty, and culinary
discourses oriented toward the Other. However, these
rapid changes caused some feelings of uncertainty and
doubt. Furthermore, food adulteration and animal disease
led to intense food scares. Consequently, many people
returned to their familiar, local cuisine.

This regional turn was noticeable in several cookbooks
and women’s magazines from the 1970s on, even as foreign
foods were being embraced. The 1985 edition of Ons
Kookboek provides a striking example. A separate chapter
on regional cuisines containing recipes from the Flemish
provinces is notably different from the 1972 edition’s
emphasis on ethnic recipes. It is also relevant that Louis-
Paul Boon, a leading Flemish novelist, published Eten op
zijn Vlaams (“Flemish Eating”), a book of local recipes,
in 1972. Numerous cookbooks appeared in the 1970s and
1980s with titles carrying the words “Flemish,” “Walloon,”
and “Regional,” as well as “Authentic” and “Traditional.”14
Women’s magazines picked up on the local craze. In 1983,
for example, the Women Farmers’ Association published a
series of articles on regional gastronomy in Flanders, with
each piece exploring one Flemish province and its cuisine.
It must be pointed out that in privileging local ingredients
and foodways, the articles revealed strong chauvinistic
feelings.15 In 1981 a specialized association, the Academy
of Regional Gastronomy, began researching and gathering
authentic recipes, and in the 1970s and 1980s several cooking
competitions were held, which emphasized the use of
typical regional ingredients.16
This interest in the local is, of course, not specific to
Flanders, Wallonia, or Brussels but may be found throughout
Europe, especially in Italy (the Slow Food Movement)
and France (le terroir). The development of tourism also
gave a serious boost to regional cuisines. Tourists love to
taste local specialties, which by now are extensively covered
in travelers’ guides. Yet, Belgium’s interest in culinary

conservatism goes beyond food to touch upon the local
political ambitions of Flemings, Bruxellois, and Walloons.
To understand this properly, we must recall Belgian history.
When the nation was formed in 1830, the Belgians had no
common culture, leading to constant competition about
whose culture was “best.” Ongoing political battles characterized
by strong separatist feelings added to the rivalry.
Flemings have long felt suppressed by the French-speaking
population; the self-confidence they gained during the
booming economy of the 1960s was expressed via a renewed,
and strong, interest in regionalism, including the embrace
of local foodways.
Did this interest go beyond the discourse of cookbooks
and tourists’ curiosity about local restaurants? Potato consumption
may, perhaps, serve as a reliable indicator of
Belgian daily cuisine. Since around 1800 potatoes have
been at the core of the hot meal in Belgium; for some,
pommes frites are the national symbol. So, to look at potato
consumption is to consider true Belgian food habits. The
graph on page 53 shows per capita potato consumption
since 1961. Four stages are visible: rapid decline in the
1960s up to 1975; a long period of stagnation up to 1999;
another rapid decline for a couple of years; and then, again,
a period of stagnation since 2003. Assuming that potato
consumption is indeed an indicator of conservative eating,
it appears that Belgians were extremely oriented toward
innovation in the 1960s and early 1970s (turning to pasta
and rice) and again between 2000 and 2004, and that they
felt more reluctant about innovation between 1975 and
2000. How can this be explained? Considering the trends
we previously laid out, it is possible to say that the graph
reflects the consecutive waves of internationalization and
regional turns. Thus, the trends in cookbooks and women’s
magazines are not isolated. Based on potato consumption
in Belgium, it is fair to say that domestic cooking confirms
the evolution previously described.
Conclusion: Upgrading the Local
This essay has touched upon questions about the use of
food as an identity marker, the nature of local food, and
the influence of foreign food. The case of Belgium reveals
a relationship between local and foreign foods in terms of
both incorporation and exclusion. First, foreign foodways
have always influenced local cooking and eating. Suffice
it to consider potatoes and pasta, which today are basic

foodstuffs in Belgium. Second, the opposition between the
Self and the Other is at times strongly upheld: local food
is labeled as “our,” “authentic,” “national,” or “regional”
(the Self), in distinction from “their,” “artificial,” or “international”
(the Other). Foodways are classified as national
or regional to forge sentiments of belonging, especially in
Belgium, where strong separatist political feelings lead to
intense regional reactions.
Since 1830 Belgium has witnessed two international
food waves alternating with two local food waves, each of
which simultaneously opposed and built upon the other’s
characteristics. In this process local food was continuously
redefined. The waterzooi of 1900 may be totally different
from the one we eat today; however, both are Belgian dishes.g
notes
1. Ruth Van Waerebeek and Maria Robbins, Everybody Eats Well in Belgium
(New York: Workman, 1996), back cover.
2. Peter Scholliers, “Meals, Food Narratives, and Sentiments of Belonging in
Past and Present,” in Food, Drink and Identity, ed. by Peter Schollliers (Oxford &
New York: Berg, 2001), 3–22.
3. Claude Fischler, “Food, Self, and Identity,” Social Science Information 27:2
(1988): 275–292.
4. Eszter Kisbàn, “Dishes as Samples and Symbols: National and Ethnic Markers
in Hungary,” in Essen und kulturelle Identität, ed. by H.J. Teuteberg, G. Neumann,
and A. Wierlacher (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1996), 204–211.
5. Peter Scholliers, “Cuisine, Internationalism, Nationalism, and Regionalism: The
Role of Food in the Construction of Territorial Sentiments (Belgium, 1830s–2000),”
in Regionalisierung europäischer Konsumkulturen im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. by Hannes
Siegrist and Manuel Schramm (Leipzig: Universitätsverlag, 2003), 170–189.
6. Octave Uzanne, “Bruxelles,” in Le Figaro Illustré, June 1910, 6.
7. Paul Bouillard, “La Belgique gourmande,” La cuisine et la femme, June 1935,
6–7. Our translation.
8. Prosper Montagné and Dr. Gottschalk, Larousse gastronomique (Paris:
Larousse, 1938), 403. Our translation.
9. Arjun Appadurai, “How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in
Contemporary India,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 30:1 (1988), 3–24.
10. Steven Van den Berghe, “Etnische diversiteit in het 20e–eeuwse Brusselse
restaurant,” Volkskunde, 2008, 359–360.
11. Yves Segers, “Food Recommendations, Tradition and Change in a Flemish
Cookbook: Ons Kookboek, 1920–2000,” Appetite 45 (2005), 4.
12. Ibid., 4–14.
13. Katholiek Vormingswerk van Landelijke Vrouwen, Bij De Haard, 1971–1976;
Katholiek Vormingswerk van Landelijke Vrouwen, Eigen Aard, 1976–1999.
14. Scholliers, “Cuisine, Internationalism, Nationalism and Regionalism,” 187.
15. Katholiek Vormingswerk van Landelijke Vrouwen, Eigen Aard, 1983.
16. Scholliers, “Cuisine, Internationalism, Nationalism, and Regionalism,” 187.