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Tholen & Sint Philipsland
Culinary specialties

Tholen & Sint Philipsland: Culinary specialties

Mussels and aquaculture…

Thinking of Zeeland is thinking of mussels. Straight from the fire, pot and all, onto your table. Cook them briefly with some finely chopped onions, celery and carrots and then… tuck in! Add a glass of white wine or a bottle of ‘mussel’ beer and you have a true feast! Something so simple can be so delicious! Well, the cooking is easy enough--- getting the mussels to the shop is the hard part! A lot of tides have come and gone by the time the mussels lie neatly packaged in the supermarkets’ refrigerated displays. Mussels aren’t caught the way fish are. They’re ‘farmed’ --- in a process known as aquaculture, to be exact. Tiny seed mussels are fished up by mussel farmers and brought to mussel beds where they continue to develop till they are ready to be brought to market. During cultivation, they’re hauled up several times and brought to other mussel beds. After two years, the mussels are harvested and brought to the Yerseke mussel auction.

 

Oysters, like pearls before swine...

Fresh oysters, from the clear water of the Oosterschelde --- sorted with care, packed into a handsome split-wood basket with a strand of seaweed on top to keep them nice and moist. A special farming method guarantees that the oysters from this region are top quality! There are two species of oysters on the market: the wild Zeeland oyster or ‘creuse’ and the flat oyster, native to Zeeland. They can be enjoyed raw or grilled. The flat Zeeland ones have such a delicate flavor that it is rather a pity to put them under a grill. And so, these native oysters are almost always eaten raw. Served chilled with a bit of salt and pepper and a drop of lemon juice --- a gourmet’s delight!

Little periwinkle, come and creep out of your house...

‘Alikruiken’, as the Dutch call them, are known locally as ‘kreukels. They’re sea snails ---‘periwinkles’ to you! A periwinkle has a dark brown ‘house’ and a transparent yellowy-brown ‘lid’. They are gathered by hand and are found on seaweed, in the salt marshes between the high- and low-tide marks, on breakwaters and on the stone cladding of the sea walls. The stones of the cladding are also called ‘kreukelbermen’ --- ‘periwinkle banks’!

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Tholen & Sint Philipsland