Belgium: Food and the National Dish

A small country with an outsized food reputation

Belgium punches well above its size on food: a small nation split between Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia has produced some of the world's most recognisable dishes and drinks, from fries and waffles to chocolate and one of the most varied beer cultures anywhere. The cuisine draws equally on its French and Dutch neighbours while staying stubbornly, proudly its own on a handful of things — starting with what actually goes on top of a plate of fries.

The national dish: moules-frites

Moules-frites — mussels steamed with white wine, celery, onion and herbs, served with a generous pile of fries on the side — is the dish most often named as Belgium's national one. The mussels usually come from Zeeland, just over the border in the Netherlands, but the way they're cooked and eaten, with bread to mop up the broth and fries always alongside, is distinctly Belgian.

Fries, waffles and chocolate

Fries themselves are treated as a serious institution rather than a side dish, traditionally fried twice — once to cook the potato through, once to crisp the outside — and served in a paper cone with mayonnaise rather than ketchup, from small stands called frietkots found in every town. Waffles come in two genuinely different forms: the light, crisp, rectangular Brussels waffle, often dressed up with cream and fruit, and the denser, sweeter Liège waffle, studded with caramelised pearl sugar and usually eaten plain, straight from the hand.

Belgian chocolate has its own claim to fame: the praline, a filled chocolate shell, was invented in Brussels in 1912 by the chocolatier Jean Neuhaus, and Belgium's reputation for fine chocolate has never really faded since.

Dishes to know

Five more to recognise across the country:

• Frites — twice-fried potato chips served with mayonnaise, sold from

dedicated frietkot stands as a meal in their own right.

• Carbonade flamande — beef slow-braised in Belgian beer with onions and

mustard, a Flemish stew often served with stoemp, a mash of potato mixed with another vegetable.

• Waterzooi — a creamy chicken or fish stew, a speciality of Ghent.
• Belgian waffles — Brussels-style (light and crisp) or Liège-style (dense

and caramelised), depending on region.

• Belgian chocolate and pralines — filled chocolates, a genuine national

industry as much as a treat.

Beer, taken seriously

Belgium may have more distinct beer styles than any other country: Trappist ales brewed by monks at a handful of certified abbeys (Orval, Chimay, Westvleteren and others among them), spontaneously fermented sour lambic and gueuze beers unique to the area around Brussels, and witbier styles like Hoegaarden. Each style is traditionally served in its own specifically shaped glass, and pairing beer with food is taken as seriously here as wine pairing is in France.

Eating as a traveller

Vegetarians will find plenty of fries, waffles, cheese and vegetable-based stoemp, though moules-frites, carbonade and waterzooi are all built around meat or shellfish. Tap water is safe throughout the country. Mussels are traditionally eaten in months containing the letter "r", broadly September to April, though good ones are available for most of the year now.

What to take from the table

A pot of mussels, a proper cone of fries with mayonnaise, and a beer served in its correct glass covers most of what Belgian food is actually about — simple ideas, executed with real, stubborn pride.