It is not only waffles or chocolate

Belgian food is just amazing. Besides chocolate, beer and waffles, Belgian cuisine is not really known worldwide but it's very diversified and good. Belgian cuisine, like any other European cuisine, had been influenced by other food cultures of its neighbors.

At least, one of the cliches about Belgium is more than true. Our chocolate is amazing. White, milk, dark, with peanuts, speculoos, strawberries,... you can find everything. Since chocolate is really popular in Belgium, you can find many industries and local factories that you can even visit. But chocolate is not only pure chocolate. Go to any restaurant in Belgium, and you'll be able to find all kinds of chocolate desserts, like ice-cream, chocolate mousse, chocolate flan, chocolate cakes, brownies or chocolate crepes and waffles. Talking about waffles, there's another true cliche about Belgium. To be totally honest, I had no idea Belgian waffles were worldwide known before I came here and everybody started asking me about them. There are different kind of waffles. You have the Brussels Waffle, which is just a big regular waffle and the Liege waffle (remember where I come from?), that is crustier and sugary. With any of those, you can put as many and as different things as you want.

I've also talked about beers. I don't want people to think that Belgian people only drink beer or drink it all the time. The only thing is that beer arrived in the late 1800s in Belgium with little local factories and, since then, it has never left the country. We have many kind of beers, from the normal to the "Brown beer", or beers with cherry, peach, grape or whatever flavor.

Besides that, there's still a lot to discover about Belgian cuisine. Our principal meals are focused on meat and potatoes. The typical dish from my region is "Boulettes à la Liégeoise", which are meatballs with a sauce made out of local syrup and raisins mostly. They're served with "French" fries, that are not French at all actually, and salad. Something else that is really good is "Salade Liégeoise3, which is a mixture of green beans, potatoes and bacon, with a little creamy sauce. We also have the typical steak fries, very popular. In Belgium, we eat more meat than we eat fish, but one of the most popular dishes is still Mussels with fries. You can have mussels with all kind of sauces.

For some food that are from Belgium and that you can find here, I recommend the "Speculoos", that is really good. With that, we also do Tiramisu and all kind of cakes. We even have a Speculoos Jelly, if I can call it like that.

There are even way more specialities than what I've talked about but I'll let you guys find out if you come to Belgium once. Bon appétit! :)

Why Belgium?

I wanted to write about Belgium because this is where I come from and I love it. I'm an exchange student here in the U.S. and I can't even remember how many questions (and how many silly questions too) I've been asked since I came here. I found out that a lot of people actually didn't know my little country and had no idea where it was. I also found out that, if they did know it, all they knew about it were the Belgian waffles, beers or chocolate. I want to make them realize that this is not it. We have so many other things, mostly cultural, that we can be proud of and that more people should know about.

I'm hoping that by the time this blog is over, my American friends and teachers won't have any more questions about Belgium. I'm planning to post different articles that will talk about Belgian culture, our weather, the capital city, the people, the way of living,  and maybe some posts about Europe in general. I'm planning to answer every question I've been asked and talk more about them.