In common with much of mainland Europe a Dutch breakfast is very different from one you would encounter anywhere in UK, even in those hotels that advertise a continental breakfast.

We had
several different types of bread,
lots of different cheeses,
lots of different sliced meats,

then after the main repast

sweet fruit bread
hagelslag

For those of you who have yet to spend more that a few days in the lowlands, I will explain: hagelslag is Dutch people’s answer to sprinkles. But don’t be fooled — these are a different kind of sprinkle than you are used to. In this country sprinkles are primarily reserved for ice-cream and cakes and normally for the children, but  in the Netherlands, it is perfectly normal behaviour for an adult to merrily sprinkle some fruit or chocolate flavoured sprinkles on their bread at mealtime. They also have aniseed flavour sprinkles that are eaten after the birth of a baby, a Dutch beschuit (a twice baked piece of round toast), is buttered and adorned with either pink (for a girl) or blue (for a boy) anise hagelslag and served to guests visiting the new babe - weird!!

I found this quote on t’interweb “ . . . To put all this sprinkle-eating madness into perspective, I will share with you a little-known fact: Dutch people are said to consume over 14 million kilos of hagelslag each year. Yes — 14 million kilos — do you know what that means? That’s roughly the combined weight of 1,000 adult elephants! (Aren’t facts are always funner when measured by elephants??) . . . "