I spent Christmas 2024 with my sister, Bean, in one of her favorite cities, Amsterdam. It was wonderful – the city is beautiful, with its dense network of interconnected canals and tall houses, and everything is so close together and easy to access. There is so much to do and my sister and I only scratched the surface of the activities available to us. But one thing we managed to fit into our daily schedule was eating every delicious thing we came across.

Originally this blog was going to be titled “5 Things from Amsterdam that the US Needs,” but there are only so many jokes a person can make about walkable communities and legalized sex work, so I decided to focus mainly on snacks for this entry.

I’m a vegetarian and Bean is a type 1 diabetic, so everything we ate was able to fit into our diets well enough, but we were definitely indulging over the holidays. That being said, I wouldn’t mind if some of these snacks made their way to the US so I could enjoy them more frequently…

One: Stroopwafel

Okay, so technically we do have this particular snack in the US, but not with the same frequency and quality as in the Netherlands. As much as I love the Trader Joe’s version, those do not bring the same spiritual satisfaction as the ones I had in Amsterdam. A stroopwafel is a decadent, waffle-like cookie that’s been cooked in a waffle iron, then cut in half, slathered with a caramel syrup, and sandwiched back together. It’s divine, and in the Netherlands, it is everywhere. You can get so many different varieties of stroopwafel in the grocery store, including freshly-baked sets that I would take to my hotel room and shovel into my mouth like coal into a train furnace.

Stroopwafels are so beloved in Amsterdam that even their McDonald’s has a flavor of Mcflurry with bits of caramel and crushed stroopwafel in it. American McDonald’s are missing out on an incredible money-making opportunity by not putting that on the menu (it had a brief debut in 2019, but it should come back).

Two: Oliebollen

While walking from my hotel to the shopping center, I would have the grace and misfortune to constantly pass a large booth selling little yeasty fried balls of goodness known as Oliebollen. My soul craved the oliebollen like a sailor craves the sea, and I dreamed of them at night.

I saw oliebollen presented in three different ways, and to my great misfortune, I only tried two out of three. There was the “classic” option, in which the hot, round oliebollen was dusted in powdered sugar, the nutellabollen, which features the classic injected with a decadent pump of nutella, and the version with raisins and currents, which I never got around to sampling, because I was sharing these with Bean and she thinks raisins are an abomination. I disagree as, in the right circumstances, raisins smack, but she persuaded me against trying the third variety, suggesting we leave Amsterdam on a high note. And we had just tried the nutellabollen, which was one of the most delicious pastries I’ve ever eaten in my life.

Three: Fries with Mayo

“Pom Frittes and sweets,” was our declaration as we wandered the streets of Amsterdam. We knew we would be rich in tasty pastries and sugary confectionaries, but there were other snacks in Amsterdam to be had. We specifically wanted the deep-fried potato magic known as Patet en Friet. According to Bean, the Dutch choose to pair their french fries with mayo, which is a little rich for me, but not so rich that I’m unwilling to give it a try.

I found a nearby fry shop, Fabel Friet Runstraat, and saw a line that went out the door, broke off at the street corner to allow room for cars and cyclists, and then continued along the canal sidewalk across the street. Normally long lines for snacks give me anxiety, but something told me this place would be worth the wait, and it was. The line and the process of ordering was claustrophobic and chaotic, but within 15 minutes, Bean and I each had our own order of fries, covered in a dusting of melting cheese, with our respective dipping sauces. She went for Spicy Mayo and Ketchup, and I tried Regular Mayo and Curry Ketchup. We had no regrets, except that we could not make Pom Frittes and sweets a regular part of our diet.

Four: Poffertjes

“What’s so special about a pancake?” you say, completely ignorant to the fluffy, buttery puffs of happiness that will change your life upon consumption. Or maybe they won’t “change your life,” but you will feel better while shoveling them in. The only struggle I had when it came to Poffertjes was calculating the best way to cram them inside my gaping maw. Did it make more sense to take one, dunk it in butter, and consume it whole, or should I bite into the pillowy softness, letting the warm steam escape? If the Dutch didn’t want me to eat the poffertjes in a single bite, then they shouldn’t have made them all so bite-sizeable.

Poffertjes are not the same as silver-dollar pancakes, which I also love, but differently. Poffertjes are thicker and fluffier than regular pancakes and are cooked in a special, indented pan. The serving I tried came with a mountain of whipped cream and strawberries, and while those were quite tasty, I would have been content with my little round pancakes (just so long as there was butter).

Five: Ginger Tea

Not everything on this list was going to be deep-fried and slathered in butter, but that doesn’t make this any less good. I discovered ginger tea by accident after wandering into a restaurant offering miso soup and a warm place to sit on a rainy day. While sipping my soul-nourishing miso soup (which should be offered on tap at every outdoor market, because miso soup is that good), I ordered a ginger tea. One of my irrational beliefs regarding folk medicine is that anything liquid with ginger is technically medicine, and since coming to Europe, I had been supplementing my diet with ginger shots and ginger kombucha (yes, I know there is minimal evidence supporting this, and I have decided I do not care, because the placebo effect is just that strong).

To my surprise, the ginger tea was literally just a few slices of fresh ginger root, minimally peeled, and soaked in hot water. I would order it at other locations, and those places would often serve the tea with a small container of honey and a little biscuit, but I found the honey not necessary. According to the people I spoke to, fresh ginger in hot water was very popular in the Netherlands during the colder months, and this drink was readily available at almost every restaurant I attended. Another similar beverage was mint tea made with fresh mint leaves, and while I enjoyed that, I felt like the taste of ginger was stronger and earthier than mint, so that’s what I preferred.

While fresh ginger in hot water may not seem as exciting as fried dough, it was refreshing and comforting in its simplicity, and could easily be in any quantity throughout the day. When I was feeling cold or tired, a hot cup of fresh ginger tea was a soothing treat I could rely on to make me feel better.

My first purchase of the new year was a mega-tub of fresh ginger root from the local Costco. Costco, every time I think you can’t get any better, you show up for me in ways I can’t imagine. Your girl is going to be drinking a bathtub’s worth of ginger tea every day and, it’s all thanks to you.

Bonus: Fried Churros drizzled with Nutella

Special mention to the bag of fried churros Bean and I demolished, because holy sh*t, they were good. Bean and I descended upon our bag of churros like a lioness on a wounded zebra. Churros and Nutella aren’t exactly exclusive to Amsterdam, but that snack is going to live forever in my heart.