Van Gogh and his lunch
Today was museum and tour day for me here in Amsterdam. I have some great — or at least interesting! — shots and insights to post over the next few days, including photos taken during the grueling Nordic marathon. (I can see why the Dutch are so carefree about creature comforts — if I lived in this climate, I’d do anything possible to warm up too.)
In the meantime, here’s a picture I took of Vincent Van Gogh today at his museum. Actually, it’s a picture of Vincent’s picture of Vincent.
No, I’m not doing anything clever with perspective, the way Vincent often did — I’m just trying to get the placque in the photo as well. Which I did. But it isn’t legible. The iPhone takes pretty good pictures of pictures, but not-so-good pictures of placques.
(By the way, the instant after I took this (non-flash) photo, I felt a light tapping on my left arm and turned around to see a warm-eyed guard tut-tutting me off taking any more. By contrast, some iron maiden of a guard in the Rijksmuseum later that day just about tore off the arm of an unfortunate guy who wandered too close to a cannon preserved from the 80 years’ war with Spain. She pointed down to a warning sign on the floor that asked patrons to keep their distance. “Can you read that? Hah?” she snapped, her eyes squirting blood out of her skull. If I had been that guy I would have said, “No, because I’m accidentally standing on it.”)
But back to Vincent. It was undeniably thrilling to see these paintings up close and in person. I don’t have much to add to that.
Afterwards, I had lunch in Vincent’s cafeteria. The food was excellent. I’ve been doing my best to have Dutch food while I’m here — and by “Dutch,” I don’t mean McDonald’s, or Burger King, or KFC, which now ring the Dam. I mean plates I can barely pronounce, and sometimes can’t identify. Later that night I had something I believe was called Pruttlepot or Puttlepot, or maybe even Pootie-Poot, which turned out to be a stew of beef with apples and mashed potatoes, with some vegetables somehow baked in the same dish along side, with several side dishes in their own serving bowls.
Here was my lunch (or what remains of it) at the Van Gogh:
That’s a bottle of appelsap (or apple juice — I just like saying appelsap), and the bag from a packet of paprika-flavored Lay’s potato chips. Unseen: some sort of raw fish sandwhich that was excellent and which I’d already consumed. What I like about this (other than the word appelsap) and why I took the picture is the bag of paprika-flavored potato chips. I love finding these regional variations on American-branded foods. In London nine years ago I first noted that curry is a condiment choice at McDonald’s, but the true discovery was the 10 or so variations of American potato chips — except in meat flavors. There were bacon-flavored potato chips, and beef flavored potato chips, and probably mutton-flavored ones as well. Why is paprika favored in the Netherlands? And is paprika derived from red peppers, as intimated on this bag? Or do the Dutch define “paprika” differently than we do, and as the British do with bacon? (Just as the Eskimos are reputed to have hundreds of different words for snow, the British so prize eating the pig that there are differentiations for “bacon” (which we would call “ham”), “crispy bacon” (which we would call “bacon”), “gammon” (which I guess we would call “fatty ham” and then either trim or throw out) and probably a couple more I’ve forgotten.)
There was no mention, by the way, anywhere in the museum as to what Vincent ate. And I doubt that he could have afforded lunch in his own museum, let alone the price of admission.