Van Gogh and colors

The last post reminded me of Vincent van Gogh, the post-impressionist painter the whole world know. I remember several years ago I have read his biography translated in Chinese. Before that, I knew him only about his famous paintings. It was so sad to know that his life was full of poverty and sickness. His paintings were sold at the most expensive prices after his death, while in his life time once around 1881 he had only six hot meals within eight months since he could not afford.

During the time he painted this, he lived in lodgings, supported by his devoted brother Theo, who regularly sent him money from his own small salary. In keeping with his humanitarian outlook he painted peasants and workers. Of this Potato eaters, he wrote to Theo: `I have tried to emphasize that those people, eating their potatoes in the lamp-light have dug the earth with those very hands they put in the dish, and so it speaks of manual labor, and how they have honestly earned their food'. Around this time his painting was full of moralistic flavor of social realism, a reproduction of what was seen. It is very different from his later work in Paris where he was obsessed by the symbolic and expressive values of colors. Paintings were dark and heavy around this time, and few people would like to pay for them.

Most memories about van Gogh's painting are about his boldness in using colors. The van Gogh museum in Amsterdam made his name in big size characters in the bright orange color, the color of his country. I somehow always feel the connection between the bright colors and European culture has its root in van Gogh's painting. You might feel a little bit of this in the Swedish furniture store IKEA. When you are in this piece of land, you will be amazed by the color, the most bright yellow, orange, blue or green, can suddenly jump into your eyes. People told me it might be because of the gloomy weather. The bright colors can bring some excitement when they feel depressed because of the weather. Our internet router is in orange color, with a red color cable line. I had a little while to adjust all these color changes in life. Now I am very happy to wear my orange color fleece jacket which we all felt it was too bright when in US.

Dutch people's daily three meals

Many places I traveled to, I have been very much interested in tasting their local food. It is part of their culture and add some spices to my travel memories. Being in the Netherlands, of course I am also interested a lot in adopting some of their food culture. What do Dutch people eat?

I asked this question to a friend of mine last time when we traveled together to Amsterdam in 2003 summer. Her parents emigrated from the Netherlands to the US. It seemed to be a quite tough question. Heineken or Grolsch? They are beers... then maybe potato, or kroket?

I couldn't complained to her since she only traveled to the Netherlands rather than living here long enough. So I have to explore myself, plus the observation of Mr. Awaara from their daily lunch gathering in the office. The major comment of his is, very simple and cold lunch, some people just eat cheese and bread, some drink milk for lunch... sounds terrible to Chinese and Indians. The picture exactly says our differences: we need all meals warm.

I found part of the answer from a blog writing about Dultch culture Hollandring:
The Dutch generally eat three meals a day. Dinner (around 6 pm) is the main meal for most people, but some rural families and older people retain the tradition of eating the main meal at midday. For them, the evening meal is light and often consists of bread, cold cuts, cheese and salad. It is clearly that urban working class doesn't have enough time to cook and have a warm lunch, so their habit is basically like what is showing in the picture.

My friends' potato statement also turns to be true. Also from the hollandring: As indicated in the famous painting by Vincent van Gogh (the aardappeleters, meaning "potato eaters"), the main ingredient in old-fashioned Dutch dinners is potatoes, usually accompanied by meat and boiled vegetables. The Dutch traditionally don't use very sharp spices and are very fond of pouring gravy onto everything. In the market, you can see all kinds of potato. Peeled potato confused me the first time I saw it. It also has peeled potato in cans.

Our program director in US was a Dutch. I remember every time he stop by the lunch room during the lunch time, he would say 'Bon Appétit'. Next time if I invited him for dinner, I should say 'eet smakelijk'. Here is some more eating manner I learned from the same source. This doesn't seem to be consistent with their talking habit. They are very straightforward in conversation.

Washing hands before eating, being on time to the table, and starting to eat at the same moment is important. It is impolite to begin eating before others. A parent or host often indicates when to eat, usually by saying 'eet smakelijk' (pronounces ATE smahk-A-lick), which literally means 'Eat deliciously' but is used in the same as Bon Appétit (enjoy the meal.) It is proper to keep hands above the table (rather than in the lap) but not to rest elbows on the table. The Dutch use the continental style of eating, with the fork on the left and the knife remaining on the right. Forks are not used to eat dessert; small spoons are provided. One does not leave the table until all have finished eating.