Sureserve Goes International

Since our monumental first step beyond our UK borders into mainland Europe with last month’s acquisition of the Dutch company, Bonarius, some of us at Sureserve have been immersing ourselves in the distinctive culture of the Netherlands.  

The country has given the world oodles of wonderful things. Who doesn’t love a stroopwafel? Tip: to eat them like a local, put the treat on top of your hot cup of coffee or tea and let the steam heat up the beautiful cookie. (Cookie, BTW, comes from the Dutch word koekje, meaning “little cake” and pronounced cook-yuh in the homeland.) The Netherlands also blessed us with coleslaw (koolsla in Dutch, for “cabbage salad”) and Gouda cheese (from Gouda, the same place that stroopwafel comes from) while enriching our souls with landscape painting (the whole genre) and Santa Claus (Sinterklaas). Other gifts to humanity include the microscope, speed skating, Wi-Fi, submarines and gin.   

Dutch Customs and Quirks 

If you happen to be travelling to Amsterdam or Maastricht any time soon, getting familiar with a few of the following traditions might assist you in your quest to be loved by all. 

The famous three cheek kiss: Instead of one or two, Dutch greetings involve three alternating cheek kisses. 

Raw herring ritual: Eaten by holding the fish by the tail and dangling it into the mouth. 

Direct communication style: Famously blunt; the Dutch value honesty and plain speaking.   

Even coffee isn’t exempt:  The practice of meticulously dividing costs, or Going Dutch, even applies to the cappuccinos quaffed during koffietijd (coffee time) with a friend. 

Cycling with umbrellas: Rain doesn’t stop them; they’ll balance an umbrella while biking. 

But let’s get to the one big question; a subject that has been gnawing at mankind for over five hundred years… 

Holland, the Netherlands and Dutch…what’s the deal? 

Raise your hand if you, too, have been kept up at night by the word Dutch. With every other place on the planet, one’s nationality is a spin-off of the country’s name. Ireland is full of the Irish, Croatians live in Croatia…etc. So why do citizens of the Netherlands call themselves Dutch? It’s outlandish!  

Let’s get to the easiest bit first: Holland vs. the Netherlands.  

North and South Holland are two of the twelve provinces that make up the Netherlands. Holland refers to these two provinces. Since this is where Amsterdam, Haarlem, Rotterdam and The Hague are located, people who live in those cities would accurately say they live in Holland. It would also be accurate for them to say they live in the Netherlands. But 60% of Dutch people are not from, nor live in, Holland. This sixty percent live in the Netherlands.  

And now to the odd bird that is the word Dutch. 

Dutch is the official language of the Netherlands. Dutch is also a nationality, the name by which the citizens of the Netherlands are known. You’d think they’d call themselves Netherlandians or Netherlanders. Here’s why they don’t. 

Back in the Middle Ages, the language spoken in the Netherlands area was called Duutsc. It not only sounded like Deutsch (as in Deutschland, or Germany), it had the same meaning.  Duutsc and Deutsch both meant ‘of the people.’ 

So, for a long time, English speakers lumped the Germans and those living in the Netherlands together. This was because they thought people in Hamburg and people in Amsterdam were speaking the same language, but with different accents.   

By the 1600s, England was trading more with the Netherlands. It wasn’t until then that the English finally distinguished the Duutsc language from the Deutsche language. The English pronounced the word Duutsc as Dutch and narrowed the term to the people and the language of the Hollanders (those living in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and other big, port cities).  

As the Netherlands built colonies and trade routes expanded, they gained world acclaim. “Dutch” became the internationally recognized label for the Netherlands people and their language. 

Bonus question: Is Hollandaise sauce from Holland? 

The eternal question…and it comes with another story as intriguing as the word Dutch. 

The French are widely accepted as the inventors of Hollandaise Sauce. Two hundred years ago, it was called Dutch Sauce. Some say the name came from the Hollandic butter the French may have used to make the very first batches of the now-famous sauce back in 1651. In those days, Holland was known for the superior quality of its butter. Though the French will tell you that they used butter from Normandy for the first batches of Hollandaise Sauce. They will tell you that the word Hollandaise was added later to give the sauce a certain je ne sais quoi, to make it sound more cosmopolitan and prestigious (since Dutch goods were renowned for their superb quality). 

And there you have it, a solid primer on Dutch customs, quirks, linguistic idiosyncrasies and one beautiful sauce with a surprisingly secret history. 

We look forward to learning and growing alongside Bonarius, the newest members of our wonderful Sureserve family.  By uniting behind our common purpose to provide warm and safe homes for social housing residents, we will achieve our shared vision to bring real, everyday improvements to real people’s everyday lives.