Grutte Pier’s Rye Bread with Green Cheese

Origin: Frisia, 16^th century CE          Makes: 2 servings
Meal: Breakfast, snack or lunch      Total time: 5 minutes

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Related posts:
Frisian Rye Bread

Ingredients:
   •  unsalted butter
   •  4 slices of Frisian rye bread
   •  some slices of Frisian green clove cheese

Instructions:
1.  Allow the butter to reach room temperature so that it becomes easily spreadable.

2.  Apply butter onto the top side of the slices of bread by spreading it evenly.

3.  Place the slices of green cheese on top of the buttered side of the bread.

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Historical Context:
This recipe/instruction is for Frisian rye bread with butter and green cheese; a famous combination in the northern province of the Netherlands. The reason for its fame, however, might come as a surprise. Besides simply being tasty, this small snack has a strong historical significance.

”Bûter, brea en griene tsiis, wa’t dat net sizze kin, is gjin oprjochte Fries.”

Grutte Pier, Simon Frisius, 1622 [1]

This phrase is known to have been used by Pier Gerlofs Donia (also known as Grutte Pier) – a giant (he was 2.15 m tall!) Frisian farmer who turned freedom fighter, rebel and pirate. He used the phrase in his rebel campaign against the Hollanders in the early 16^th century CE to identify non-Frisians. Those who could not properly pronounce the words were not true Frisians and could therefore be considered an enemy. The phrase can be translated into “Butter, bread and green cheese, who cannot say that is no genuine Frisian”.

The “griene tsiis” mentioned by Pier is likely a variant of the Frisian Clove Cheese; a cheese made of skim cow milk to which cloves are added to give the otherwise very plain cheese a tasty flavour. The cloves also improved durability, which made Frisian Clove Cheese ideal for filling the holds of ships bound for far away lands. The green colour was probably achieved with parsley juice. You can see this type of cheese in the header image.

Frisian Rye Bread [2]

Pier probably also had a very specific type of bread in mind. He was likely thinking of Frisian rye bread. This bread is very similar to the German pumpernickel bread and was consumed by the poor in large quantities in Pier’s time. It is very dense with large grains visible and is also very soft and easy to tear apart (it splits in two at the slightest bending). Its flavour is very strong and slightly sweet; a bit of an acquired taste for some. See the recipe for Frisian Rye Bread for more information.

It is interesting to note the similarities between the Frisian and English languages. The sentence above might look very intimidating, but if you take your time to dissect the words and their pronunciation, you will see the similarities! Despite centuries of Dutch and German influences, English remains the closest relative to Frisian; the two languages split around the 12^th century CE.

Sources: Hollandi Juust [0], Rijksmuseum [1], Taste Atlas [2], Bakkers in bedrijf, Historiek, Safe Food Factory, Wijndomein & Friesland Post

Note: This is the first post on this blog and was more of a test to see what format would work best. Despite it not being a real recipe, it did manage to teach me a few things.