| Welcome at restaurant Beluga |
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There is a Dutch saying that “a farmer does not eat what he does not know”. Every week about three hundred guests are given a hearty welcome by Daniëlle and me and after shaking hands our real job begins. Are they comfortably seated? How do they feel? What will they drink? What will they eat? In fact, we can more or less tell what our guests are going to eat and drink. You could call it a little game that we play and nearly always win. Yet, it might not be a bad idea to remember from time to time how what we eat and drink eventually finds its way to our plates and glasses. I get hundreds of e-mails telling me that I am cruel to animals because I’ve got foie gras on the menu. But there is foie gras and foie gras and I can assure you that the foie gras on my menu is not from force fed geese. There are also other methods. Anyway, when I drive on my heated seat through the northern part of our Limburg I have always so much respect for all those farmers who day after day are responsible for all the good things of the land. But at the same time I must admit that I never ever would like to be a farmer, because I think that really means toiling and sweating 24 hours a day with often the additional stress. Back to the restaurant. A big hand is held out to me, followed by an introduction. At last the farmer has found the time to come and enjoy life at my place. That is what farmers are like; they want to but do not really dare. Then I am really at my best and my farmer is going to taste all the good things from the sea, the sky and, but that goes without saying, of the land. Another victory worth a little game. For, after all, that is why we are in Limburg where every guest gets the same special treatment. Of course, we in Maastricht are a bit snobbish but then everybody knows that nowhere the light is as bright as on the Vrijthof in Maastricht. Slightly exaggerated? Maybe, but ah well, that is Maastricht. We let a farmer enjoy the things he does not know, meanwhile enjoying the light shining for us every day. Hans Van Wolde |