One of the things I have had to come to terms with is that the bakeries here just don't seem to do savoury pies they way they do in the UK. In fact I am struggling to think of anywhere where I have come across a meat pie in Belgium. It is one of those sacrifices I have had to make and therefore I need to go back home to the UK to get my fix every now and again.
On the subject of bakeries, I have often described Belgium as being a few decades behind the UK in terms of shopping and choice of products. Bakeries are an example of where Belgium has retained specialised shops that produce some amazingly nice tarts, bread and other baked goods. In the UK, unless you happen to live in London, it is rare to see a small independent bakers. In fact they died out a long time ago when chains such as Greggs replaced them, along with the growth of the out of town supermarkets. Greggs, believe it or not, operate in Belgium, only here they are a sandwich shop and you will get looks of horror if you refer to them as 'Greggs the bakers'.
Apart from a range of freshly baked bread, which is just divine, they also do traditional cheesecakes, fruit tarts, croissants, raisin bread, sugar bread and pastries. There are normally queues in most of these bakers especially on Sunday, even Christmas day. This is quite a surprise for a country that is shut on Sundays and during holidays, in stark contrast to the UK where holidays are used as a commercial opportunity.
In contrast when you go to a supermarket you will still get a reasonable range of bread but it is not as good a quality as the bakers. In the UK of course, the supermarkets produce as much in the bread aisle as Belgian supermarkets stock wine in their wine aisle!
You must beware that as quick as you can say 'can I have a long white' they have it in the bread cutting machine and it is being quite thinly sliced. There is no choice of thickness, just cut or uncut. If you like your doorsteps or anything more than 1/2 cm thick then you have to stop them by saying 'niet sneden!' The good points about getting sliced is that it controls how much you eat each time you have a sandwich and also it saves on the mess when you cut the bread. The downside is that the bread isn't decently thick enough to hold a proper filling and it goes off quicker. Picky I know but you really want it to be able to hold some filling rather than spilling it all over the place when you eat.
Most Belgians order a Christmas cake, Kerststronk (Christmas Log), but this one is absolutely plastered in fresh light cream and is based on a sponge with fruit. It has heart attack written all over it, which for a nation that is slim and healthy, is quite surprising. Bakeries are a big plus in favour of Belgium.
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