12: Tompoes (or tompouce)
I loooove tompoezen (one tompoes + one tompoes = two tompoezen). It is my one weakness one of my weaknesses. And especially the tompoezen that are made and sold by the HEMA. Love them! (Although the whipped cream version made by a bakery in a nearby village isn’t bad either.) So, just for you, dear blogfriends, I went to the HEMA yesterday and got you four tompoezen.
Only for the photos of course.
A tompoes is made of two layers of puff pastry with a vanilla pastry cream filling and pink icing on top. Its shape is always rectangular. Around Queens Day (the day our country celebrates the Queen’s birthday) and when our national football team has to play an important match, the icing on the tompoezen isn’t pink but orange. (Orange is our national colour. Our Royal family is called Van Oranje-Nassau.)
The difficulty with tompoezen is ‘how to eat them in a civilized manner’. You could try to prick your pasty fork into the top layer of puff pastry. It won’t work. You’ll either press the top layer down, making a mess of the whole thing because the cream filling will ooze out, or the whole tompoes will shoot off your plate and land on the floor or against the wall or in the lap of someone else. So pricking your fork in the top layer of pastry is not the best way to attack a tompoes.
The safest and easiest, but perhaps not the most elegant and civil way is to use your hands to take off the top layer, eat that first and then use your pastry fork to eat the rest. Or take alternate bites.
I wonder, how does the Queen eat a tompoes?
Somehow the tompoezen I bought for photographic purposes only ended up on saucers. With pastry forks.
And the other two we ate that evening. Oops. Weak flesh and all that. (Even weaker with the calories of two tompoezen each added.)
13: HEMA
The HEMA (an acronym for Hollandsche Eenheidsprijzen Maatschappij Amsterdam, ‘Dutch Standard Prices Company Amsterdam’) is a chain of department stores. The first HEMA opened in Amsterdam on November 4th, 1926. Everything on sale had a standard price of 10, 25, 50, 75 or 100 cents. Quality goods for a low price. They still sell good quality products, but the prices are no longer standardized. To see the range of products they sell you can follow the link below (Mara from Weighty Matters tipped me that this site has a fun chain reaction going on):
The HEMA is also famous for its ‘rookworst’ or smoked sausage.
Since the 1990s, HEMA has also expanded into neighbouring countries. Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and France have HEMA’s too.
The HEMA organizes yearly competitions for Design students. The winning design will be produced and sold by the HEMA. This year’s briefing was ‘design an authentic HEMA product, which makes it easier and more fun for people to get out and about’.
You can see the winning design of this year here.
Oh. Mmmm. I think your tompoes beats my Muskoka Mocha ice cream any day. I'll have to take a look for it at the local Dutch butcher (maker of one of the things that I love about the Netherlands - beef croquettes).
ReplyDeleteFor dinner the other night, we had 'wussi' as my husband calls it. I think it may be the rookworst. Mmmm. (Uh-oh, I've drooled all over the keyboard, again.)
Well the dessert looks awesome & the HEMA sounds great. We don't have anything like it here.
ReplyDeleteHugs & love,
Mimi
I make it a point to try to learn one new thing every day, and today I learned that one tompoes + 1 tompoes = 2 tompoezen. Now if I can just work it into a conversation...
ReplyDeleteThank you for #13 as I was wondering what in heck HEMA was while I was reading #12. I make it a point to try to be thankful for something every day, and today I am thankful that Hollandsche Eenheidsprijzen Maatschappij Amsterdam is abbreviated as HEMA.
A word to the wise: Never use the words "prick" and "pastry fork" in the same sentence.
Oh yum one of the things I miss. I love the Hema as well. We still have lots of stuff here with Jip en Janneke on it as they sold it for a long time at the Hema. Actually we lived opposite the Hema for years so I know it pretty well.
ReplyDeleteAh you big tease. I come back from the land of the Eclair and Gelato and you tease me with what we affectionately know as "Vanilla Slice" Yes I know we're terribly creative with our names. I'm on a diet anyway . . .hope you scoffed the lot!
ReplyDeleteThe only proper way to eat a tompoes: with your hands, all in one go and mess up! I want one now...
ReplyDeleteIt's a good thing, I think, that I don't live anywhere near tompoes; they look entirely too yummy and "everything in moderation" is a bit difficult for me.
ReplyDeleteThe HEMA design award site was very interesting. Thanks for the link.
They look much like our vanilla slices and your description of the inelegance of actually consuming them rings true. Best go into a room on your own, open your mouth wide and stuff the whole thing in, without trying to be polite!
ReplyDeletehmmm, adds 'must visit the Netherlands' on my to do list if only to sample the said tampoezens
ReplyDeleteYum.. the pink icing kinda turns me off, but puff pastry of any form is never a bad thing.
ReplyDeleteGoing to catch up!
Oh, my. I would probably weigh fifty pounds more if those were readily available in my neighborhood. And happier, of course.
ReplyDeletei bet diabetics don't like number 12 netherland likes
ReplyDeleteTompoezen! Very, very lekker. And to think I am tooo far away to go to the Hema and get one, or two.
ReplyDeleteAnd, shame on Dutch me, I didn't know what Hema stands for: Hollandsche Eenheidsprijzen Maatschappij Amsterdam, and I grew up on Hema everything.
My far-away Dutch heart enjoyed your post!
Have you gone on vacation? Are Willem, Evie, Naloma, and Hubs all right? Did the dikes finally break?
ReplyDeleteYour readers are concerned about your absence from Blogland.
Information AND a cream cake! What more could one ask of a blogpost?! :)
ReplyDeleteYeeha!
ReplyDeleteCarolina, that is some wonderful(tempting as all get out) stuff! OOOU Yumo!Your photographs had (have) me drooling pretty much.
And the video of the sale items-HILARIOUS! The "Gettoblaster" too funny!
Come on back...after your runs....tell us more of how you have been girl!
Kac
Yum! We used to go to a bakery that had something similar when we were kids. Thanks for stopping in and commenting to b.t.w.
ReplyDeleteAAAAAAaahhhhh!! I'd forgotten all about those - why did you have to remind me? Now I WANT one!!
ReplyDeleteAs Jennyfreckles says, we have almost the exact same pastry here, but called 'Vanilla slices'. Always with pink icing, just puff pastry filled with whipped cream - sweetened, of course. My, they are good. There was a bakery in the village when I was a teenager and the lady owner used to make her own. I'm sure that's why I started putting on weight in the first place ...