So, my wife is Dutch. Not like cops and army men in movies who are named Van *blank* that people nickname Dutch. Nor, like the Germans (Deutsche) who came to America and refuse to use modern inventions yet have no problem with high-tec flourescent orange/super reflective street safety devices and get called Dutch. She's real Dutch. That Windmill up there? That's the view from her friggin bedroom. Dutch.
So, one of the wonderful things about being with a foreigner is being a part of all the delightful lessons in cultural differences and the things that get lost in translation. For example, did you know that the Dutch also have a food pyramid, but theirs is built out of sugar cubes and blocks of cheese? Another, was the other day when we were discussing the baby and my wife said she was happy that our daughter didn't show any signs of "yawndice"(that actually did happen). I'm sure as time goes on I'll share with you many traditions I learn about as we share them with Saskia.
One Dutch Tradition, mainly from her region (who thought a country the size of Maryland had regions, much less regions that are VEEERRRY territorial), is to bake a bread in honor of the new born child. Called Krente Wegge, the bread is of course sweet, a raisin bread, and is filled with a marzipan filling (like you do), and is baked to be the size of the baby when born.
Like the good proud grandparents that they are my in-laws had the bread made to share with friends and well wishers. Now, our baby was roughly 19" long, but something tells me that somewhere in the conversion process to metric those numbers got frazzled along the way. How do I know this? Well, take a look at the photos they sent us of themselves with the bread. On the one hand you have the sheer scale of the loaf. On the other, my in-laws have a look of bewildered nervousness that their daughter may have just birthed a T-Rex.
-GD
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