Bitterballen

Ahh Amsterdam, it's good to see you. What are the chances that my work trip would lead me back to your storied streets? Well, pretty good I guess since I planned my work trip around it. Was is really only eight years ago that we landed in Amsterdam for 48 crazy hours for BRD's bachelor party? That was truly insane. And what happened there will certainly stay there, not that anything "happened" there per se, but there are rules. This is not 'Nam.

OK, one thing I can safely talk about is the bitterballen.

WTF is bitterballen? Well, I think it ONLY exists in the Netherlands, maybe just in Amsterdam. Maybe in heaven too. We decided on that last trip, as we devoured them by the bucket-full, that they HAD to be deep fried gravy balls (see my camera phone picture above). Some kind of magic must hold the gravy in a ball form, while perhaps Jesus himself deep fries them. Look at that picture. LOOK AT IT. Mmmmmm. Oh yes, those are mini meatlette chunks surrounded by goodness, and then friend deeply in a bit of heaven. If you have never had the experience of bitterballen, and if you're a deep fried gravy kind of person (you know if you are), go get your likely fat ass on a plane to Amsterdam.

So it was a few days after my work trip, and I was trying to explain the beauty of bitterballen to a large group of family members at a family function.

Cousin: "So what did you do on your trip to Amsterdam?"

Me: "Well not much. I was by myself on a business trip. I did have a few beers in some bars... it was OK. OH, and I ate BITTERBALLEN! Do you know what that is? It's like fried gra..."

Uncle [interrupting] "Never heard of 'em! Sound like Bull's Balls or something! What is that, like Amsterdam's version of Rocky Mountain Oysters?" [everyone laughs]

Me: "Ha ha! No, it's like fried gravy. Bulls' balls... Good one."

"OH SHIT," I thought to myself. I just realized that I had NO IDEA what bitterballen actually was. We had all just ASSUMED that it was something as innocent as deep fried gravy. None of us were smart enough to ask, or investigate in the slightest. Did I just down a dozen deep fried bull testes last weekend? And another fifty or so years before? OH SHIT. OH SHIT. I felt very ill, and I started to sweat. It's called "bitterBALLen" for fuck sake! I think I just ate a dozen fried bull nuts in mustard sauce. And any of you reading this who were in Amsterdam eight years ago should be thinking the same thing. We ordered the local delicacy, with zero clue, and it was bull balls.

At least that's what I feared for about fifteen minutes of my life, until I got to a computer.

Bitterballen (per wikipedia) it turns out, is basically deep fried gravy. Thank God.