Dutch Folkloristic Market at Zoutelande, the Netherlands. Part One.

I wanted to take a little break from writing about my Japan trip with this post about the folkloristic market of Zoutelande. Don't worry, I still have a few Japan post left and will continue writing about it of course! Anyway, I think that in any country a lot of old traditions fade away or disappear completely as modern times progresses. It's something I think is really sad, but at the same time it is difficult to prevent. One way to at least not let old crafts die out is by organizing something like a folkloristic market. At the same time it educates both foreign and local people about the local crafts and traditions. So when there was a folkloristic market (mostly for touristic purposes) in my hometown I decided to take a look around because I didn't have to go to work that day anyway.

I was hoping to see some traditional clothing, which I did, a lot! But I will save that for a later post. Other than the traditional clothing I didn't really know what to expect or what I wanted to see. So I just wandered around the market taking photos and trying to learn about some of the crafts that were shown there. The first stand which was closest so my home (and in front of the bakery where I work) was a booth with babbelaars. Babbelaars are traditional sweets from Zeeland, a province of the Netherlands and my 'home province'. They are simple sweets with only five ingredients and are basically pure sugar. But they are good! It's a traditional kind of Dutch butterscotch. Usually they are sold in cute tins with pictures of people in regional traditional costumes or Dutch sceneries. At the booth there were older women, a younger girl and a man all dressed folk costumes and they were making and selling the babbelaars on the spot. First they melt the sugar with the other ingredients and move it to a cold plate where they keep mixing it until it is cool enough to roll it out and make thin strips. They then make nicks in the strips and when it's completely cooled and hardened they break them and there you have the candies! At this particular booth they also sold special babbelaars with chocolate and cinnamon flavor. I bought them and cinnamon flavor is approved! I am not sure what to think about the chocolate ones though...

cooling the batter

stretching and rolling

making nicks

breaking into pieces

packing the yummies

Just to mention it, 'my' bakery also had a stall. My colleagues sold oliebollen there. An oliebol is something like a deep-fried donut. It is Dutch New Years food and I love it! But it is not something I would eat in summer, I think it's a Dutch mental thing; oliebol is winter food. So I didn't eat any of them. I did eat some soft serve ice-cream because the ones at our bakery are very good. Sorry, I didn't take photos of our bakery and the booth. Next were some gift shops booths. One of the was a booth with candles. One of the ladies there was making some candles on the spot by dipping the base in different colors (of wax I assume) and letting the layer dry and then dipping it in the next color. She told me that it took long today because it was too hot and the layers wouldn't dry very well. But they also shouldn't get too cold otherwise the next layer won't hold. Candles are not some old Dutch craft, but at least it was interesting to see. Next to the candle booth was a stand with metal jewelry. A guy was making some of the jewelry next to the booth. This is something I used to do with my grandfather too, but again not traditionally Dutch per se.

In front of the church were some interesting booths. One of them, my favorite, was the wooden shoos booth. Believe it or not, but some people still wear. Mostly farmers, like the shoes are intended for. Other than that, no, people in the Netherlands don't walk around in wooden shoes. I only wore them once in my life. They are heavy and not so comfortable. It was the first time I saw someone making them though. The guy who was making them was actually from Belgium, but he said that most wooden shoes makers and wearers are still Dutch. There are just not many left though. The shoe he was working on already had a rough shape and he was scraping out the wood where the food has to go in. He told me that there are also wooden shoes with leather which the farmers wear on fancy occasions. I can't imagine haha. His wife, I suppose, was working with a spinning wheel. That is also something I only saw in museums and the Sleeping Beauty.

The only time I ever wore wooden shoes, and a farmers suit. I even milked cows and ate cheese, it doesn't get more Dutch except for tulips and wind mills.

There was another booth that I found really mesmerizing, which was one where there were only two home made chairs and an old guy making a third chair. He was weaving the seating of the chair. We used to have those wicker chairs at home, not those hip modern ones or the one you put in the garden, but real classis ones. That's why it intrigued me so much. I used to always sit on them but it never occurred to me how they were made and how much time and effort that took. And the guy was so concentrated on the weaving, for some reason it touched me. Close to that booth was a booth with different kind of cheeses, not to be missed of course, and a booth where they were 'smoking' (preparing food with hot smoke) eels. My grandfather also does this sometimes. It is funny how most booths reminded me of my grandparents because they either did those things or told me about their (grand)parents doing it. I have a new found respect for what they did and what our old traditions are.

Cutting the cheesy goods

Notes;

• Seeing traditional crafts of your hometown makes you appreciate and respect your local customs more
• These kind of markets are really touristic though
• Putting on traditional clothes makes everything a thousand times better
• Babbelaars are typical Zeeuws. You won't find them in the rest of the Netherlands, let alone the rest of the world.
• It takes a lot of work to make wooden shoes
• Wooden shoes are heavy and uncomfy
• Wicker chairs make me feel nostalgic
• Yummy, cheese

I will tell you more about the market next time!