The tastiest limoncello in the world is made by people from Brabant, as it turned out again this week. For four years in a row, people from Brabant have won this prestigious prize. This raises the question of what else Brabant excels at when it comes to food and drink. A summary of Brabant’s five largest.
sausage Rolls
When you think of Brabant, you almost automatically think of sausage bread. Everyone in the province knows the sausage roll, but outside it is also on the shop shelves as a popular regional product. It is a sandwich that can be eaten at almost any time. As an extra on the weekend at the breakfast table, after the Midnight Mass at Christmas or at Easter brunch are the well-known sausage bread moments.
A sausage roll is also a good addition to the well-known coffee table at funerals. Every year the tastiest Brabant sausage roll is chosen. Traditionally, this is a pork sausage baked in bread dough. Nowadays there are more variants such as the vegetarian sausage roll and the halal sausage roll.
Limoncello
Thanks to Eindhoven friends Nick and Harrie and Josephine van den Biggelaar from De Mortel, limoncello has definitively entered our province this week. Both received a gold predicate for their lemon liqueur limoncello. No foreigner scored higher, so no Italian where the drink originally comes from.
The most surprising thing is that the people of Brabant have left all foreigners behind for four years now. The Brabant invasion of the world of limoncello erupted in 2020 when Veldhovenaar Geert Wernaart received the highest rating. Where the other Brabanders achieved ‘gold’, Geert’s limoncello received ‘outstanding gold’.
Coffee
A sausage roll often goes together with coffee. That is immediately the next tarter of Brabant taste buds. At the end of January, Lucifer was awarded best coffee shop in the Netherlands in Eindhoven. Nowhere else in the Netherlands is the coffee so delicious. Part of this success formula is their espresso machine. It is a copy of the Brabant coffee machine manufacturer Kees van der Westen.
In Waalre, Kees builds several dozen espresso machines every year, ranging in price from fifteen to twenty thousand euros. The devices go all over the world. His daughter says she is ‘ruined’ by the taste explosion this machine produces. “If I am offered a Nespresso, let alone cheaper cups, at a friend’s house, I say: just make tea.”
The Brabant owner Jeroen Veldkamp of Coffeelab with branches in the major Brabant cities praises the ‘have a cup of coffee together’ culture in Brabant. In Italy they often drink coffee alone, just like in the Randstad. “Coffee is the social lubricant in our province.”
Bosch ball
From coffee it is a small step to the Bossche bol. It has often been copied but never equaled and is only available in Den Bosch from Jan de Groot. “We only sell them in Den Bosch,” says a shop assistant. “We could deliver them anywhere. They are in high demand, but then we would have to start a factory and we don’t want that. Don’t forget they have been handcrafted for three generations. I have half the world here every day standing in front of me, because everyone wants to try the one and only Bossche bol.”
Unox smoked sausage
Something that can be ordered from abroad is the Unox smoked sausage from Oss. Since 1937, Unox smoked sausage has been produced at the Hertog factory. Sometimes this sausage with its cleverly chosen international name can be found in supermarkets abroad. If that is not the case, the smoked sausage can simply be ordered online. Apparently this is an indispensable Brabant product for some because it is specifically mentioned on shopping sites for Dutch expats.
