Happy birthday to the frikandel

According to a press release put out by a well known Dutch fast food maufacturer, today is the fiftieth anniversary of the invention of the frikandel. The story is that on this day in 1959 Jan Bekkers invented this popular sausage like snack when he started up his fast food factory; he was also supposed to have changed his name at the same time to Beckers in order to be first in the phone book before his competition, his cousin. A nice story and I’ve chosen to believe it for the sake of this post, but it’s quite clear it’s only a story and the frikandel has a much longer history dating back to the eighteenth century at least.

If you’re never been to the Netherlands you’ll likely have never encountered this particular meaty treat. The picture above shows one to perfection: a long, skinless dark brown sausage made of mixed meats, deep fried and usually eaten with fries, often covered in a sauce mixture of mayonaisse, curry or tomato ketchup and diced raw onion. There’s no truth to the rumour it’s made of all the disgusting left over bits of animals (lips, buttholes and eyeballs being particular popular grossout ingredients), at least not since the Dutch food standards agency made this illegal. These days there are even proper halal frikandellen.

Honestly it tastes better than it looks and you don’t need to be drunk to enjoy; millions of Dutch kiddies grew up with a regular saturday evening meal of fries and frikandellen. Unlike its stable mate, the kroket, it has not yet been improved in order to chase the luxury market; it’s as decent and honest a fast food treat you can get. If you ever visit the Netherlands, do try one but take care not to take one from the vending machines at the FEBO, as you never know how long these have been stewing behind the glass…