Peel a lot of potatoes. Chop a lot of onions. Clean and part a lot of carrots. The proportions in weight: two parts of potatoes, one part of onions and one part of carrots. For onions you can use the brown ones, carrots are usually large ones, called ‘winterpenen’ in Holland, any potato will do. Throw the four parts together in a pot, add water and boil for 30 minutes.Next comes the hard working: pour out the remaining water, take your mash-device and there you go: mashing until your weight is about an ounce (Dutch expression).
A truly good hutspot is smooth and without pieces.
To derive an ultimate experience of taste and smell, cook a ‘rookworst’ (smoked sausage) together with the veggies. Occasionally, some spices are added: bay leave, lots of salt and a bit of pepper.
One may doubt whether such a dish may be called Dutch: there is not a lot of cultural dedication in mashing three ingredients. But heaven has divined the mashing of potatoe as being Dutch, and this is why:
It was during the siege of Leiden in 1574. As every old Dutch city, Leiden was surrounded by a wall and a canal. Alva, the Hispanic conquestor, claimed the city, while the civilians of Leiden had promised loyalty to the Prince of Orange. Unfortunately, the prince was in the Betuwe, the always flowery cherry-growing region of the Netherlands. As effective artillery was not yet invented, a wall and a canal happened to be a very good defense. So Alva had no other choice than waiting, until the civilians of Leiden would surrender because of starvation. After half a year, those civilians came to be very hungry and a third of them died. The major even offered his own body as food, but nobody wanted to have a taste.
But the Hispanics were not prepared for the ‘Watergeuzen’, a fleet of buccaneers who were living on their ships during the war and had an alliance with the Prince of Orange. The relief was done in a very Dutch way: the Geuzen made a breach in one of the dykes that have always protected the Dutch countries. The same night, the seawater was driven by a storm towards Leiden and the Spanish occupying armies were forced to flee. The Spanish withdrawal was first reported by a little boy who found a huge pot of hutspot in their camp. I suppose this pot must have been brought there by an angel or so. Ever since, the 3rd of October, is a day of eating hutspot and commemorating the relief of Leiden is commemorated by eating hutspot.
Ambiguous enough, if it was not an angel, the Hispanics were the inventors of hutspot. They must have found the ingredients on the Dutch crofts, where they grow plentiful. But we, the Dutch, certainly did our part to make hutspot big. In those times the potato and all its ways to make something edible out of it, were not yet widely known, as it was introduced from Afghanistan, where culinary creativity has never been the main subject of interest. The first hutspot, the one from heaven, was made of ‘pastinaken’. This vegetable reportedly tastes like potato but cannot be as good, because these days it is seldom found in the supermarkets of the Dutch kingdom. Henceforth today, one eats his hutspot with potato and great appetite.
