DIRT

23 Jan

“We project dirt onto things, situations and shapes. Infinite dirt surrounds and inhabits us, making it pointless for us to reject it or avert. So what happens when you disconnect the dirt from its object, taste or smell? What happens when the discomfort is exhausted or subverted? Do we then become dirty ourselves?
...
If our species is to avoid its destruction, we must strive for a less polluted earth. In this effort, artists and storytellers play an important sensibilising role. In her series ‘Precarios’ ( Spanish for ‘the precarious’), artist Cecilia Vicuña combines materials she found in nature with human-made ‘trash’, like plastics and textile scraps. By making small sculptures out of debris, Vicuña gives new value to the unwanted and asks us to cherish these objects, rather than seeing them as ‘dirty’ or ‘disposable’.

This call for papers offers ground to all the dirty minded rebels out there: submit and help us sow new, fertile dirt.”

— Simulacrum, December 2021

Digesting a dirt-y history: Speculaaskoek
Written in collaboration with Elise de Jong

Somewhere in between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice of 2018, the slightly sandy, occasionally clay-y soil of Amsterdam Zuidoost was refreshingly cool to work in.

The school garden kids were still in their light jackets, but we all worked up a sweat preparing the ground for the beans that would spend the rest of the summer climbing the bamboo we were staking on this day. As my supervisor gave thorough instructions to this Montessori group of 11 and 12 year olds at the other end of the beds, the kids on my end were listening to him with one ear, and cracking jokes to their neighbours with the other. Just as I began to muster my best Dutch to redirect their attention, the small, blue-eyed girl to my left bent down to her freshly-tilled garden bed, the tips of her long blonde braids brushing the ground as she scooped up a handful of soil, rubbed it on her arms, and turned to me, a Mixed Black intern immigrated from the US, and excitedly claimed, “Ik ben Zwarte Piet!”

SPECULAASKRUIDEN SPECERIJMENGSEL
Tenminste houdbaar tot einde: april 2025.
Koel, droog, donker en afgesloten bewaren.
Ingrediënten: kaneel, nootmuskaat, kruidnagel, piment, gember, koriander, foelie, kardemom.

Benodigdheden:

500 g. bloem
325 g. boter
225 g. bruine basterd suiker
30 g. gepelde of geschaafde amandelen
5 theelepels bakpoeder
20 g. speculaaskruiden van Jacoob Hooy
1 theelepel zout
1 ei

Voorbereiding:

Bloem, bruine basterdsuiker, speculaaskruiden, bakpoeder en zout in een kom goed mengen. Boter toevoegen en met een vork fijnmaken tot verwijderen en soepele deegbal. Hiermee kunt u nu speculaasjes, brokken speculaas en gevulde speculaas maken.

Speculaasjes:

Het deeg uitrollen op een beboterde speculaasplank. Overtollig deeg verwijderen en de speculaasjes op een beboterde bakblik leggen. Eventueel geschaafde amandel erover strooien. Bakken in voor-verwarmde oven.

Temp. 150-175C. Baktijd: 20 à 25 min.

As someone who is a direct descendant of the horrors of American slavery, and now finds themselves calling the Netherlands home, I’m both fascinated and frustrated by holiday celebrations; each year diving deeper into the nuances of the stories we tell ourselves about traditions. Two in particular have captivated me — the arrival of Sinterklaas, and the arrival of spiced cookies to grocery store shelves such as pepernoten, kruidnoten, and the star of the holiday season: speculaaskoek.

When I first moved to The Netherlands over four years ago for graduate school in Science Education and Communication, upon my first holiday season, I was questioned by the friends-of-the-friends of my ex—
“What do you think of Zwarte Piet”?
Given my family history, my long-standing passions professionally and personally in culinary history and cultural sustainability, I couldn’t help but be honest.
“Zwarte Piet is racist, the story surrounding the character is deeply damaging to black and brown communities, and it personally makes my stomach turn and heart hurt to see white Dutch children and grown-ass adults marching around in black face with big grins on their faces.”
Their response?
“Well, you’re only half black, so you’re only allowed to be half offended. Besides, you don’t get it. You’re American, not Dutch, and these are our traditions.”

Around the same time I was busy making new Dutch friends, I retreated to the Albert Heijn and Ekoplazas to try to find supplies to make gingerbread cookies— an American classic, and holiday homesickness cure. Instead, I was bombarded with bags and packages of these tiny, round cookies, claiming to be “spicy” and “herby”. It seemed like the Albert Heijn had sprouted these displays overnight, and I couldn’t get enough of them. Right by the kassa, there they were: the speculaaskoek. Crisp, tight detailing depicting the Dutch-est of Dutch iconography; windmills, Sint himself, the menagerie. It was like my Grandma Mary’s nativity scene had been baked into a still life. Something tugged at my belly, though. The beautiful, delicious cookies and their corresponding forms seemed just a bit too… beautiful.

Something else tugged as well. Throughout the rest of the year, these cookies were nowhere to be found. You could get wholewheat digestive biscuits, biscoff cookies which are similar, but missing the imagery (and also Belgian). But these particular cookies were only found after American Thanksgiving mid-November until just after Oude en Nieuwejaars. Not only were the cookies missing, the spices that made them up were also completely AWOL in classic Dutch food fare. Stamppot, hutspot, krokant, broodje kaas. I couldn’t help but wonder how it came to be that these spices were relegated to the holiday season, and the holiday season only. And why I never seem to think about this during the spring and summer. Four Sinterklaas-es later, that something continued tugging in my stomach, so I bought a package of Biscoff Speculoos, and dug a bit deeper.

Benodigdheden

As a result of the trade expeditions between the Europeans and the Ottoman Empire, during what many call the “Age of Exploration”, Europeans became obsessed with many spices. Most notably, this obsession centered around nutmeg for its hallucinogenic and aphrodisiac powers, as well as its purported ability to fend off the Black Plague. Team Nutmeg included the Dutch East India Company (VOC), and right at the beginning of the 1600’s, they went after the Portuguese-controlled Banda Islands, rescuing the Banda people from the Portuguese. Or so the Banda thought. After the Banda were caught “betraying” their apparently exclusive deal with the Dutch by trading nutmeg with a nearby island for food, the VOC quickly resorted to violence— dipping exported nutmeg trees in lime to prevent them growing anywhere else and by anyone else except the imported Dutch farmers put in charge of growing the nutmeg after the colonists murdered most of the Bandanese population. Additionally, the Dutch and British conflict over one of the islands called Ran led to one of the VOC leaders burning down the island’s entire supply of nutmeg trees.

Back on Dutch soil, speculaas cookies likely got their name from the moulds they were formed in, mirroring the traditionally Dutch imagery into the dough before baking and alluding to the Latin speculum for mirror. A mixture of nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, clove, ginger, white pepper, and cardamom, the mix often includes anise seed and coriander seeds. Speculaas were first made using a rye or wholegrain flour, honey and dark sugar, but bakers later started to incorporate leavening agents, and left at least overnight to develop the flavours of the spices and firm the dough.

Voorbereiding

Although the Sinterklaas festival originated in the Middle Ages as a way to help out the poor, the start of 1600 saw the incorporation of kruidnoten and pepernoten as some of the treats Saint Nicholas would give out to children as their patron saint, upon arrival to the Netherlands from Spain on December 6th. Abundant in spices due to the conquests of the VOC, holiday celebrations began including these spiced cookies, often also distributed by Sint’s supposedly Moorish helper, Zwarte Piet. Initially depicted as a mischievous and unintelligent side-kick to Sint, the 16th century costumed helper’s narrative and aesthetic later takes a turn. Piet’s face is no longer black due to race, but now due to soot as he climbs down chimneys to deliver gifts to children. Many cities and towns have adapted the new storyline for Sint’s little helper, but many still don their best blackface and minstrelsy act for the day’s celebration, much to protestors’ opposition. Opposition to the Zwarte Piet is Racisme movement has turned rather violent in recent years— an interesting parallel to the Dutch’s initial love story with nutmeg.

Dutch soil is not known for being hospitable or arable, yet The Netherlands is the second largest agricultural exporter in the world, only after the United States. Geological maps of The Netherlands reveal glacial till, peat, clay and sand mixtures, acidification, high heavy-metal concentrations, and pesticide presence. Although a generous portion of the Dutch population consider themselves farmers, it’s not a self-sufficient lifestyle for most, and many rely on not only the Dutch’s technological innovation, but also their importing of food goods. This comes as a surprise to few, given the Netherland’s historical past with colonialism, but their insistence on relying on technology to grow food on a large scale rather than protecting the arable land they have left is disheartening.

Prior to 2019, I was unaware of Dutch soil’s capacity for inadvertent black face. This incident on the school garden struck me as deeper than the topsoil we were preparing for spring crops, and embedded in me the feeling that a nation capable of such violence abroad is just as capable within its borders. Ecologically speaking, Dutch soil is an inhospitable environment for the cultivating spices that were taken from their homelands, and not integrated into the daily Dutch diet and eating culture, possibly as a result. But to be celebrated in abundance during holiday times, during a time that has historically vilified black and brown people, one can only wonder how far the association has rooted in the minds of each generation. Especially considering the traditional iconography that is mirrored into these spice-filled cookies, generated from the spoils of war, genocide, and implicitly attached to black face.

Speculaasjes

We are not yet living in a post-colonialism society, but two things can be true at the same time: we can enjoy these spices as they have been adapted into holiday traditions, and have reverence for where they actually came from, in all of their bloody and dirty context. Cultivating this ability to hold multiple truths becomes vital as we weave together more fleshed-out and balanced narratives of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and their modern-day implications. Looking at immigration legislation, equitable media representation, public and education policy, we have a responsibility to rally just as hard for making our homelands a hospitable place for the children of the legacies of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and modern-day immigrants to thrive in their cultural complexities. We owe it to the spices and ancestors stolen from their native lands to make Dutch soil, as well as tending to the lands globally impacted by colonialism, as rich and regenerative for future generations as we collectively can.

Some food for thought: a new Speculaaskoek recipe.
Based on the Jacob Hooy recipe excerpt as written above, developed in collaboration with Elise de Jong.

Ingredients:
490 grams of flour
325 grams of unsalted butter
225 grams of brown sugar, packed
5 teaspoons of baking powder
20 grams of speculaaskruiden from Jacoob Hooy
10 grams of dutch dirt
1 teaspoon of salt
1 egg

Preparation:

Mix flour, brown sugar, speculaaskruiden, baking powder, Dutch dirt, and salt in a bowl.
Add butter, and with a fork, mash the butter into the flour until incorporated. Once formed into a shaggy ball, use your hands to create a smooth ball of dough. You should be able to feel the graininess of the dirt against your hands as you bring the dough together.
Preheat the oven to 170C. Roll out the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Press the VOC coin stamp into the dough firmly, mirroring the violence inflicted on the Bandanese people, until the image of the coin is left in the dough. Remove excess dough.
Bake in a preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, and serve to your friends and family. Reassure them that the odd texture they are experiencing is just their consciousness, and the holiday spirit, kicking in.

Fijne feestdagen!