Bruxelles, Beer, and Byes (Belgium pt 4)
This will be a quick ending note of my time in Belgium. As a recap, I was working with a baker (Pierre) in southern Belgium (Theux). This will mostly cover non-bread things.
To hear how I got there: Part 1
To hear what I did while there: Part 2
To hear how about pastries: Part 3
To hear how it all ends, read on!
Beer horses en route to the festival
In Brussels:
In 2008, UNESCO established their Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage, a set of three lists which highlight the diversity of cultures around the world: religious pilgrimages, marriage rituals, silk production, bear festivals, letter art, folk feasts, shadow theatre, tugging rituals and games, polyphonic singing, midwifery, oxcart traditions, dry stone walling, baguette culture, practices and meanings associated with the preparation and consumption of ceviche, and so on. Of the 676 total elements, Belgium contributes 18, the 9th most of the 140 countries included. This includes shrimp fishing on horseback, falconry, stilt jousting, traditional irrigation techniques, processional giants and dragons, and, the nation's beer culture. These lists, beyond just being a very fun internet rabbit hole, highlight unique aspects of different cultures which, the UN argues, should be protected for the very egalitarian reason that they make us who we are, and are therefore important. The act of drinking beer in Belgium is therefore an appreciation of, and complex conversation with, the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. What is more noble than that? Plus, it's far easier and more accessible than shrimp fishing on horseback.
In early September I arrived in Brussels via train to join my mom and aunt who were delivering me medicine and paying a visit. At the cafe we headed to for breakfast, the menu boasts 13 different waffle choices, a proper introduction to Belgium. Maybe it's novelty, maybe it's intangible cultural heritage, who am I to say.
Sign says it all
Our arrival also coincided with Belgian Beer Weekend. Crowded into the central plaza, surrounded by gilded baroque municipal buildings and giggling gargoyles, were 50 Belgian breweries vending over 500 different beers. A 3 meter tall sign, wreathed in drying hops, listed each beer along with their characteristics, percent alcohol, and if they were bottled or kegged. We hadn't known about this festival, so in my head this was just what happens every weekend in Brussels.
Before the festival began we set off on a walk around the city to sightsee, which mostly amounts to looking at statues and a variety of architectural styles. One could quickly come to the conclusion that stone masons were a hot commodity in Renaissance Brussels. As far as I could tell, there was such a monumental need for miniature stone men to adorn buildings that they let anything fly. Yes, we saw the famous bronze peeing boy, but we also found a stone angel wrestling with a monkey, a monk being crushed by a chair, a petty knife-fight immortalized in a pedestal, and innumerable more demons, demon-slayers, demoiselles, and saintly stone figures projecting from the sides of buildings.
The last statue on our todo list was a bronze peeing girl, hidden down a cobbled alley with string lights and baskets of drooping vines. The walls were lined with signs adorned with slightly drunk looking pink elephant, letting you know every 20 feet that you are in Delirium Village. The collection of barrooms and alcoves that comprise this village are devoted to the drinking of over 2000 types of beers, the most of any bar in the world. In the basement, beyond copper brewkettles, retired cooperage and barstools, we found a chalkboard sign listing all the gluten free beers they had on offer: 10 in total, comprising only 0.5% of their total offering, but 10 more than most bars. We took our beers outside to a table in front of Jeanneke Pis and watched as a steady stream of people took photos in front of the pigtailed pisser (technical name). We probably whispered "what tourists" about the other tourists having already taken our own photos. It doesn't matter, we were in a cozy alley as the sun was setting and life could go on forever like this. Until, of course, one gets hungry, as I always do.
So we followed this up with a second round of waffles, a pot of moules frites in yet another fairy-lit, vined alleyway, and even more frites from a friterie with a tasting board of mayonnaises. When I look back at my younger days I hope I picture myself in a European plaza with a well-mayonnaised fry in hand.
On our way to the big event we stopped to get a flight of gluten free beers from our morning waffle-shop. Being excited to take part in the revelry, we got three flights, one each. Which was probably too many. We drank as other tourists probably whispered "what tourists" about us. I don't care. As previously stated, authenticity is dead. We were sipping our way through effervescent galleries in the living museum of intangible cultural heritage, argonauts on a quest to discover for ourselves the invisible strings which tie humanity from present to past, golden fleeces replaced by far-nobler amber ferments. For a brief moment, I was a normal person, drinking beer, as I'm instructed normal people do, and it was soul quenching. I can see why people do it. People giggled when they passed by, probably because we radiated pure joy, our hearts at one with the legacy of the land and its ignoble brewers, and also because 12 glasses of beer occupying the entirety of a tiny slatted table does look funny. Them's the rules. What the gigglers didn't understand is that as soon as I would leave this Belgian oasis, gluten free beer disappears, so I needed to drink deep, or taste not that Pierian spring.
See gf beers in front, (envious) gigglers behind
Well toasted, we headed into the beer festival in search of the last of the gluten free beers we hadn't tried (and, of course, free swag). I walked away with a golden pin from St. Feuillien, a fifth-generation brewery which produces abbey beers made following recipes of the 11th century abbey of the same name. The president of the brewery is also the mayor of the town, Rœulx, which I find very fun. Each brewery has its own glassware, with tulip, fluted, and goblet-esque shapes to best aid in the presentation and preservation of flavors and aromas. Being a simple man, moved by shiny objects and new shapes, these do elevate the experience for me, even if for the wrong reasons. While I'm not a fancy-glassware fan per se (I believe the noble coffee mug the best receptacle for all liquids), I appreciate the way they highlight the artisan nature of the drink, the way an intricate frame would a painting. In some settings maybe they're snobbish and pedantic, but it adds another layer of depth to the already complex beer world, and acts as a reminder that the fizzy liquid they hold was crafted with intention, carries its own history, and, if one is willing, can be viewed as more than just a intoxicating means-to-an-end.
I think my aunt may have walked away with a Delirium pink elephant glass, which is an honorable souvenir. We met a group of very drunk French teenagers who, in slurred and broken English, explained just how drunk they were, just how good the beer was, and just how excited they were that we were enjoying their culture. I don't know inter-European dynamics well enough to know how the Belgians would feel about this last statement, but we appreciated the warm reception all the same.
In Theux:
The next morning we took the train back to Theux to arrive at the bakery for brunch. I nervously introduce my mom and my aunt to Pierre, anxious for their approval of my new friend. Being one of the sunbeams of life, he quickly wins them over, radiating unfettered joy and happiness, singing my undue praises while giving us a quick tour. We get shown upstairs, where brunch is spread across multiple tables and fridges. In true Belgian fashion, half of the offerings are some form of dip, sauce, spread, aioli, hummus, dressing, or vinaigrette: egg salad, mayonnaise (standard and garlic), beetroot hummus, eggplant tapenade, goat cheese, wildflower honey, pate de noisettes, gelée de pommes sauvages, almond butter, praliné pécan, it's all there, and it's all spreadable. The other half of the brunch consists of mediums on which you can spread your condiments, a garage of vehicles which exist to transport the true stars of the show: the sauces. [what came first, the bread or the butter?]
Brunch, many condiments not pictured
This extends beyond just Sunday brunches. Lunches at the bakery would invariably be bread and baguettes, fresh baked or leftover from the previous week, and thinly sliced root veggies. This would be accompanied by cheeses (usually spreadable), mayonnaises, chutneys, curries, and vinaigrette. My American brain, incapable of comprehending this, was only ever able to interpret it as snack time. Uncultured and crude of me to use this diminutive in order to describe such a timeless pleasure, I know, but I am who I am; a little troll ignorant of the finer things. In any case, the lunches were always delicious.
The brunch happened to fall on the day before my mother's birthday, and Alix (and Tao and Pierre) decorated a vanilla, coconut, pistachio cake to celebrate. Pierre bestowed upon us even more gifts of bags, breads, and baked goods.
With what remained of the day I showed them the castle, now bereft of pilgrims and paupers, and we tried and failed to find an open entrance to the caverns below. After seeing it (touching the stones, confirming it was there), we left the castle to its own devices assured that it would stand for at least a few more years. What more is there to do at castle when there are no bagpipers to dance jigs around, high and stately maidens to court, or knights to bet your shillings on?
A lunch of spreads
At the bar in town, we sat besides locals having their Sunday communion: chairs in a half circle in the shade of the awning, smoking in slow drags, taking their espresso and beers, at times talking quickly or not at all, surely weighing the scales of judgement as to whether these three foreigners who crudely ordered Aperol spritzes in broken, guttural French were all that is wrong with Belgium these days. I must imagine that the scales tipped in our favor for, soon after, more spritzes were being ferried out the door to those who I would have incorrectly labeled curmudgeons had judgement been cast the other way.
Spritzes are the great equalizer, cobbled patios their trying grounds, sunny afternoons their finest hours.
I say goodbye to my family at the train platform in town, where they'd begin their multi-stage journey home, and I'd begin a sun-filled stroll back to Pierre's house past geese and green gardens.
Discussing Business
On Belgium:
Belgium, I came to conclude, is a fairytale land; the evening sky is dotted with hot air balloons and paragliders, drifting lazily through the warm air, past derelict castles and above field after field of pastorally-cliche black and white cows. When I run past them they lift their heavy heads from their troughs to face me, en mass, and in deep supplicating moos, ask for more hay, or more water, or for me to acknowledge their existence among the otherwise empty hills. Kittens stalk silently through tall grasses in search of field mice, hidden voles, and unsuspecting runners. The gravel country roads crisscrossing Wallonia take you from storied village to stony town via youth soccer fields, through new-growth forests, across cold running rivers, and past dusty green tractors sitting outside open hay-barns.
The field in front of the bakery, freshly cut
In Liege we go to dinner with Pierre's friends to a restaurant decorated with hundreds of marionettes, celebrating Tchantchès, a character of folklore who was described to me as a 'jolly bad boy, like us, loving peket and hating the crown'. Pierre orders me flower wine, peket, and a pork knuckle. Bowls of fries are put in the middle of the table, everyone discussing the quality of the mayonnaise, because that's what I've learned you do. You ache and you moan for fries and mayonnaise, irregardless of time or location.
In my last day at the bakery Pierre takes my photos, adorned in my denim apron, bread in hand, eyes half closed from weeks of early mornings and missed sleep.
He lets me crawl into the basket of the vintage dough machine in the front of the shop, a request I had the first time I entered the bakery. I'm crowned with an upside down banneton, armed with the bread-spatula, and I take my place among the other real and imagined characters of fairytale Wallonia. After work, I watch the hay dry in the field across the way, the freshly cut grass and myself both sunbathing after a successful summer season. Pierre is doing accounting, Judith stamping paper bags, a customer eating lunch, all side by side under umbrellaed picnic tables. I bike home and they wave goodbye, the stranger included.
The next day I drive across France in search of Spain. I sleep at a rest area, where I order pork knuckle with fries and ask for extra mayonnaise.
Pierre's Attempts at Making me Famous:
A writeup I don't have access to read, about his silly apprentice
Pierre's Insta post:
A post shared by @boulangerielalternative
The more technical readers among you may realize that the timeline in Brussels does not line up, because it occurred over two days, but I like how this reads; of gluten free gluttony and well-enjoyed excess.
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Cliche
Cliche