Tweet15-05-2011 om 18:19 by Sueli Brodin

Oyster plant, potimarron, vitelotte potato, rutabaga, cardoon, parsnip, white squash, Jerusalem artichoke, spinach beet, purslane are some examples of forgotten vegetables (or vergeten groenten in Dutch) which seem to be slowly reappearing in the Dutch cuisine.



I enjoy finding them in my weekly subscription of organic vegetables and being exposed to shapes, colours and tastes previously unknown to me as well.



For Roger Bastin, the owner of a beautiful nursery garden in the village of Aalbeek between Maastricht and Heerlen, these vegetables deserve a better name: instead of “forgotten”, he calls them “unforgettable”.

When I read in his latest newsletter that he was going to organise a special weekend at the nursery on the theme of “unforgettable vegetables”, I smiled at the clever twist in the title and immediately marked the event in our calendar.

The weather was pleasant and sunny when we arrived at the nursery garden on Saturday afternoon.



We marvelled at the large choice of young plants on sale: strawberries, pumpkins, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and many different types of herbs..



At one of the stalls, culinary historian Lizet Kruijff was letting visitors taste a delicious herb cheese spread she had prepared based on the ancient Roman recipe of “moretum”. She had placed various pots of herbs on the table (oregano, rosemary..) and gave tips on how we could use them (more often) in our everyday cooking.

She repeated something that I had already read a few years ago in a book entitled “Dutch women don’t get depressed” by the Dutch journalist Ellen de Bruin, about the fact that Dutch cuisine in the middle ages and up until the end of the 19th century used to be much more refined and tastier than it is now and made much more use of all sorts of herbs and spices.

The publication of a cookbook for housewives at the beginning of the 20th century seems to have caused the downfall of Dutch cuisine. The book was originally written with a good intention: that of helping Dutch working class families with modest means to prepare simple but healthy meals with cheap and easy to find ingredients.

The cookbook unexpectedly was a huge success, among all classes of society, and ended up having a lasting influence on Dutch cuisine which as a result became desperately bland and boring.

“That’s how many types of vegetables disappeared from the Dutch table as well,” Lizet Kruijff explained, handing us fresh and exquisite stems of green wild asparagus.



There was a lot more to marvel at as we continued our visit of the nursery garden.



We grabbed a wooden basket and started collecting flowers for our own garden.







This beautiful cistus ladanifer made me dream of a summer dress in the same colours and using the same pattern.



Walking through the nursery garden was a sheer delight for the eyes and the heart.



We left our children jumping and laughing on a big trampoline and continued exploring the splendid grounds.









My husband was very impressed by the well tended vegetable garden: “How do they do it, I can’t even spot a single bad weed..!”



We stopped again at the strawberry plants and were intrigued by a white type of strawberry dubbed pineapple strawberry (or pineberry in the UK) because of its pineapple flavour.



The card explained that it was a hybrid between the South American Fragaria chiloensis, and North American Fragaria virginiana. I also read later that the South American berry was bred from a wild strawberry and had become nearly extinct in 2003 when it was saved by Dutch farmers.



Roger Bastin told me that a lot of people even thought that the white strawberry was an April’s Fool joke when it first appeared on the market a few years ago.



We came back home with a nice pineberry plant bearing a promising white little fruit.

My children say they can’t wait to see it grow and get to taste it.

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The next special themed days at the Bastin nursery garden will be on:

11-12-13 June: Mediterranean days

9-10 July: Lavender lovers days

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