Surviving on Tulip Bulbs during World War 2 - Dutch Hunger Winter

[@TastingHistory]

Get 40% off your first Hungryroot box PLUS get a free item of your choice in every box for life with code TASTINGHISTORY at bit.ly/3DhydYp.

[@danielsantiagourtado3430]

Love your content max! THIS series is among your Best 😊😊😊😊

[@vamp1024]

I'm curious. What's the difference between Hungryroot and Hello Fresh?

[@TastingHistory]

@ The amount of time spent in the kitchen. Most everything is prepared with Hungryroot.

[@nubannub8108]

Yay! Thanks for doing a dutch recipe! Please do more dutch recipes. Also if I understand it correctly the dutch actually used the "yellow potato" or more commonly known as "yukon gold". Softer, less starchy and I personally only ever use that potato!

[@halpen]

I got the cookbook for Christmas for the second time. From my mother. 😂 Her memory may be going, but she knows it's a great gift!

[@chris.take.the.L]

the irony of the “avoiding starvation by eating tulip bulbs” video being sponsored by “Hungryroot”

[@thebadshave503]

Oh good I wasn't the only one having that thought like, 20 seconds in.

[@guyanomaly]

Too soon, Max!

[@spooningkat6933]

That's not irony, it's just aptly named.

[@ThatGuyNamedRick]

Irony would be if this episode being sponsored by "Save the flowers" or something like that. This is nuance.

[@gabbonoo]

irony? ...poetic coincidence is what think you mean

[@Qualltoxy]

My grandpa was born in Amsterdam in 1939. He still remembered from his toddler years that when things got really, really bad the trees in the city were cut down - for food, not heat. Apparently his parents had a cat and one day she came to their apartment with a big piece of raw beef in her mouth that she stole from somewhere in the neighbourhood. They immediately cooked it in a pan and the cat got a piece of it as a thank you 🥹

[@Subject49]

That was not where I thought that story was going but was pleasantly surprised

[@Pascaffa]

@@Subject49 yeah, my mind went the same way. But that cat is a useful cat, so would be kept. Being able to eat birds bcause your cat killed it, works

[@josem588]

As a Mexican I thought people from the Netherlands or usa and the developed world in general didnt know what it was to be poor

[@Subject49]

@josem588 for modern day Netherlands you'd be partially correct . Like our poorest of poor can't be compared with the poorest of poor in lesser developed countries for example simply cause there are always institutions that can provide food for you . Worst case you could choose to go to prison and then you get better provisions than in some hotels . But In the past yeah human suffering is global

[@Cloudy_Berry79]

Good kitty! That cat definitely loved your grandpa's family.

[@roxanaluna523]

As a Dutch viewer of you channel: thank you for teaching the world a little bit about Dutch history. We learn about WWII in school and also about the Hungerwinter. People in the countryside were 'lucky' that there were some farms around to go to. My grandma told me she had to go by foot and walk al day to walk to different farms and ask for food. For people in the cities, especially the west, this wasn't an option so they suffered even more. If you would like another story on Dutch history which has to do with food, you should look into the 80 years war and specifically the city of Leiden who resisted the Spanish 1573-1574. There is a special dish involved in this story called 'hutspot' which is also a version of 'stamppot'.😊

[@DenUitvreter]

And herring and whitebread.

[@zarav.1315]

Jaaaa, ik wilde deze tippen! (als geboren Leidse)

[@denisevano.1345]

And we still eat Hutspot to this day ❤ love me some Hutspot with meatballs and gravy 🤤

[@shadowcath761]

Same with my Grandmother i still have a photo of my Grandmother with 4 smalll children in 1942 were she had to walk hours to the nearest farms ( westland ) and also walk back .. but during the Hunger winter of 1944 that wasn't an option as all those farms and were my Grandmother lived was behind the Atlantic Walls which was occupied by the Germans as well her village which the Germans took over and replaced all those people to the city and in the cities they were bombarded and with no food at all

[@Mistish]

3 oktober 3 oktober wat een dag :D

[@deleila_charlie2068]

My grandmother also had to survive on flower bulbs, and after the war she had to be sent away to recover from the famine. She had a hard time throwing things away and would always have a pantry full in case of. She'd always spoil us with food because she didn't want us to know what hunger was.

[@Nikkita-b4d]

My grandma was the same way. She never talked about WW2 and raised my mom and her siblings as "covert" Jewish. I never knew we were raised kosher until last year when I began practicing Messianic Judaism. It's the way I was raised, so it wasn't hard to practice the faith. Now I know why me and my bro were always fed kosher food. Lol

[@afterbirth5733]

My American grandmother, having gone thru the great depression, was overweight and a bit of a packrat. She taught me, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."

[@tanyah.9131]

My grandma grew up during the depression and also had problems with hoarding. It's sad how these historical events affect people for life!

[@HRM.H]

My grandma didnt throw away ANY food scraps ever. They were always turned into soup or given to the birds in her garden

[@josyteapotyoga]

My paternal grandparents lived through the bombings of London - actually my grandma was sent to live in Wales with her abusive family leading to all sorts of mental issues which persist at her ripen old age of 93 (but that's another story 😁). My grandfather who experienced rationing in London at that time similarly equated feeding us to loving us and always had an overstocked pantry (as do my parents, and I have the tendency to do the same - intergenerational trauma on a very light level!). He relished big meals and celebrations, it was his way of showing his love to us!

[@Tielyanna]

I got the Tasting History cookbook for Christmas. On last week’s episode, my daughter saw it behind you and said “he has the same book you do!” 😂

[@TastingHistory]

Now to cook up something from it 👨🏼‍🍳

[@Tielyanna]

Absolutely! We’re going to do semlor since I used to live in Sweden.

[@jennoq1311]

I bought my mom the tasting history cookbook last year for Christmas. She doesn't cook much anymore but she loves to look at recipes and it's quite an interesting book.

[@DeviousFink]

So wholesome 😁

[@MissHoneyKitchen]

Aaaw that is so cute!!

[@melskunk]

My grandfather was in the first Canadian liberation force that went into Holland after this and this was the one part of the war he didn't talk to me about until I was an adult. The condition of the Dutch at the end of the war affected him deeply, and he was there for the better part of a year as they stabilized and retained the territory (he was nearly assassinated by a Dutch-Nazi sniper, lost a notch from the bridge of his nose and his driver was killed) . Before he passed I discovered the very generic landscape painting he had was a gift from an artist who hid his paintinga for the entire war in a cow barn. He also painted a beautiful portrait of my grandfather with the last of his paints, scaped thin over rough canvas

[@oeautobody3586]

❤

[@itsexpla]

as a Dutch person, I appreciate the help and endeavors your grandfather gave for our country!

[@ttaibe]

Alot of Dutch people are still grateful for what your grandfather and other allied soldiers did during WW2! As am I.

[@tiasnow4942]

We will forever be thankful for his service. The sacrifices the allied forces made to liberate us shall not be forgotten. Greetings from Amsterdam!

[@sophieb.1287]

Max, the comments under your videos are one of the best parts of your videos. I spend a lot of time reading them. Especially when you talk about younger history and people start to write about their grandparents or own experiences. These stories give your videos more "reality" or "life" or... I don't know how to describe it. But it is very special. And very valuable. Thanks for sharing this part of history. And thanks to all the people who share their little or bigger stories! ❤

[@heidimisfeldt5685]

I love reading the comments myself. 😊❤

[@flyonthewall8122]

The comments add depth & color.❤

[@daniellejarvis157]

I was going to say t his very same thing! It is amazing the stories that come out of these videos. Thank you Max, for bringing history to life.

[@AmandaNievi]

The comments under Max's videos are always a treat. Such a safe space full of personal stories. I also spend a lot of time reading them!

[@andersonomo597]

Same here! Reading the stories is incredible - and a precious slice of history. Cheers from Oz!

[@KaisarHendrik]

My grandfather told me a story about that time. During the hunger winter it was pretty normal for people in urban regions to cycle for hours to rural regions in the hopes that the local farms and vegetable gardens had allowed them to save up more food than in the cities. My grandfather's family had barely any food left and had therefor also resorted to eating tulip bulbs. My grandfather (15 at the time) got diarhea from eating them. Fearing that his son might starve if he couldn't eat most of the little food they had, his father decided to try his luck. He cycled into the countryside and for hours he went from farm to farm begging for something that his son could safely eat. He finally found a farmer who took pity on him and got a small sack of potatoes. He started the hours long trek home. A few kilometers from his house there was a bridge he had to get over, it was an elevated bridge so ships could pass underneath. He was so tired that he could barely get up that hill. A stranger seeing him struggle offered to push him to the top. My great grandfather thanked him. He only found out a few minutes later, that the sack of potatoes on the back of his bicycle was now gone. I can't even imagine how he must have felt coming home empty handed that day. My grandfather, his father, mother and his two brothers all survived, and without lasting (physical) damage. He himself passed away in 2017 at the age of 87, never having eaten a single tulip bulb ever again

[@Meme-dp9gn]

@@KaisarHendrik what a wonderful bus tragic story , a fathers love just beautiful thank you for posting ❤️

[@carlottevelthuijs7029]

My great grandmother had a similar story, much earlier in the war. She and her husband went to the farmers for vegetables. They took the bike and managed to trade a large bag of beans (sperziebonen). They went back but when turning into their street, they were met with a group of German soldiers. They tried to get home, but my great grandmother got sent home and her husband got taken along with the bike and the beans. She didn’t see him until the next day, no bike and no beans.

[@edithvanburgh7352]

@@carlottevelthuijs7029 Official history these days often gives reasons like the train strike etc. for the Hunger Winter. Many older people from Rotterdam would tell you it was done on purpose and that the Germans would try to take the food away if people tried to bring it back to their homes after a hongertocht (hunger trek) to the rural places.

[@carlottevelthuijs7029]

@@edithvanburgh7352 I remember reading this in history. I’m so sad that when I did eindexamen we didn’t get the world wars, just US history and gouden eeuw

[@RazorsharpLT]

@@edithvanburgh7352 Well, the train strike IS a reason Germans were angry and felt betrayed

[@sharonrigs7999]

My grandmother lived through the Dutch Hunger before marrying my grandfather, a British soldier. She said it was a very tough time, but they lived near a forest and could forage, fish and trap what ever small game had not been scared off by the fighting. They still had to eat their 2 beloved dogs, a fact that my grandmother would still tear up about over 60 years later.

[@AnaMahsati]

I can't imagine how hard that was! I'm sorry for her and the family.

[@jasper46985]

Yes, it was awful! My granddad (iam Dutch) ate a dead German.. there was no food left in '44.

[@1412Bunny]

@@jasper46985 cannibalism..? i hadn't heard that cannibalism was done during the famine. :s

[@jasper46985]

@@1412Bunny unfortunately, yes. It was horrible.

[@dyanadebruin2166]

Trapping was highly punished by the germans during the war if I remember correct

[@Emberheart_]

A fun fact about Dutch butchery rules as a result of the hunger winter: post-war skinned rabbit had to have its legs attached if it was to be sold, so that you can tell it isn't a cat. When hunger made just about anything eligible to be eaten a whole lot of unfortunate street cats ended up in a stew. Allegedly cat meat is almost indistinguishable from rabbit meat, hence the legs are now left attached so that you can make sure the butcher didn't sell you a very unlucky cat. Lovely to see something Dutch on the channel!

[@pheart2381]

😾 that was done a lot in Victorian britain, cats replacing rabbits.

[@michaelkarvonen356]

I have two fat cats 🐈 and a old rabbit 🐇 and getting hungry 😊

[@Moonpearl121]

I have eaten cat that was sold as rabbit (in China some decades ago) and it doesn't taste like rabbit. The meat of a carnivore tastes totally different from that of a herbivore.... 🤮 But these people were starving so I don't blame them. A friend's father who was an Italian soldier in Sicily during the war said they ate cat when they could catch them, and rats.

[@obliviouscandybar]

My brother lived in a small village in Sierra Leone for three years as a Peace Corps teacher. He said that it was customary to include an identifying body part of the butchered animal at the meal so guests knew what meat they were eating. What meat they ate was dependent on what the bush hunters caught that day. Chickens were only for special occasions since they have continual value for their eggs.

[@DaveOBrien]

@@Moonpearl121 The ever popular Rat pie, Rat Stew, and of course the traditional Ratatouille...

[@pim1234]

My grandmother shared her food with the alsatian dog she hid in the shed. The animal survived the hunger winter and the war and lived for many years after the war !

[@HRM.H]

My grandma said they had to eat the dog, as they were starving and couldnt feed it anymore. Her mother only told her after the war...

[@christavanderburg4382]

@@HRM.H My grandma had to eat 'dakhaas' (literally: roof hare, a euphemism for cats, as they roam the roofs of sheds and lower houses), as she also had to feed a small child, living in the ruins of Rotterdam.

[@franciet99]

💙

[@muin_]

​@@HRM.Hthat's actually so heartbreaking for both sides it's terrible 💔

[@omanita7289]

​@@vinceferdinand3576that would be there ration. It heartbreaking that the ritch and the leiders where oversea. The working clas were sufring not the elite😢 We never learn, to know what happens every day. Als de Russen die winter niet zo hard hadden gevochten ( vele zijn gesneuveld) was Europa al een land geweest. Ken je geschiedenis, vertel mond op mond aan kinderen, kleinkinderen zodat niets verloren gaat van onze mooie en minder mooie geschiedenis. Veel kinderen werden naar het platteland bij boeren ondergebracht waar nog enigzins voedsel was. Dat is waarom ik niet begrijp dat de nederlandse boeren niet beschermd worden door de overheid. Ik heb honger gekend maar God zij dank nog geen tulpenbollen hoeven eten. Ik hou wel van stampot 😊 Groetjes uit Nederland

[@leodragon77]

I am second generation Dutch living in Australia. My mother has a story from the time my grandparents were living in Holland during the German occupation. Oma had given birth to her first child, my Uncle Rolf. They were under rations at the time, and Oma was so malnourished that she was unable to produce breast milk, but there wasn’t enough cows’ milk available as a substitute. In desperation, Opa would cycle at night to a farm to get cows’ milk from a farmer who agreed to provide some to him. It was very dangerous for both of them in case they got caught cheating on the rations. Luckily, neither of them ever were. Uncle Rolf survived, but unfortunately, their second son didn’t. But Oma and Oma went on to have seven more children before emigrating to Australia. I have always felt grateful to that farmer who agreed to give milk for my Uncle Rolf. And Opa was so brave to risk it. There were so many unsung heroes like them during the war.

[@edureal21]

Other thing about the hunger in Netherlands is that after some people that were starving ate the food given by the Allies they got very sick, almost like their bodies were rejecting the food. Doctors observed this, studied the effects of starvation in the human body and developed some protocols of how to feed people that were starving

[@robbert-janmerk6783]

Yeah, refeeding syndrome is no joke.

[@pamthompson3170]

When the armies came upon the prisoner of war/concentration camps there was joy that they had been saved. People still died because they were ill, mistreated, starved, and worked to death. If they, the prisoners were given too much food it made them sick or worse.

[@johannlarkin8844]

My father told me that as a child, he was brought to a re-feeding camp, and they were fed beans. This was the only available food, but all of the children were vomiting. It's caused by starvation.

[@DenUitvreter]

In the US conscentious objectors volunteered to be starved to research this and prepare for it.

[@powerist209]

Now I wonder if final chapter of Maus was such case. The author’s father and his friend escaped from the camp and ended up on farm where they help themselves with milk and chicken…and ended up with being sick.

[@moniquem783]

Thank you. My Opa was taken into forced labour fairly early in the war. Oma was in Rotterdam I think. I’m not certain. They never talked about their experiences. We were never allowed to ask. If the N word was ever mentioned on tv or something, worried looks would be exchanged between Oma and my mum and aunts because they knew Opa would have nightmares that night. The only thing they ever talked about was that they met and fell in love before the war, and that they found each other again afterwards. Even though it was never mentioned, it was just understood that you never wasted food in front of them. You only put on your plate what you were sure you could eat. You could have more if you wanted, but you did not leave anything on your plate. Ever. They also had a veggie patch in the yard right into their 80’s. They made sure it could never happen again. I do wish they’d told us more about their experiences, but of course I understand why they couldn’t. But it makes videos like this so much more valuable, because it gives a real insight into what it was like for them, in a way that just reading about facts can never do. You bring history to life Max. Thank you so much for this one 😘

[@littlekong7685]

It seems everyone from those situations agreed as a generation to just be silent about it. If you knew, you didn't want to be reminded, if you didn't know, then they didn't want to hurt you. My own grandmother refused to talk too much about her time as a war slave, and what few stories she told were quite sanitized.

[@stephs8785]

We had to find out stories about how my Opa saved 2 Jewish boys from Rotterdam during the war from strangers years and years after his death... We were never told by him. He would only ever tell us just 1 story about how he escaped the work camp which he made into a joke because he nearly lost his pinky finger and the Americans he ran into during his escape sewed it back on for him. It was a well known fact to never ask him about it because he would clam up. It's awful what our Opas and Omas generation went through 😢 let's hope it never ever happens again!

[@misssis1935]

My Oma only died in 2011, but she never wanted to speak about the war, which was a shame for me, as I am very interested in history, but I had to respect her wishes. Unfortunately my Opa died when I was only ten, and I never got to ask him about his wartime experiences. They were married in January 1940, and my father, the eldest, was born in November 1940. My cousins told me Oma only said that it wasn't so bad for them as many others, as they lived in the country (more a town with land for growing behind their house. They lived in the province of Groningen). My Dad was old enough to remember the battle for their village in April 1945, and he told me the first time he'd ever seen bread that wasn't black, and chocolate, was when the Canadians gave them some. He never had a taste for sweet things, and I think a lot of that stemmed from not having it for the first few years of life. The day I saw him eat two chocolate biscuits when I was in my early twenties was the first and only time I ever saw him eat something sweet!

[@grovermartin6874]

​​@@stephs8785There is a moving video on KZbin about a British man (Sir Douglas Winton -- or Minton?) who managed to save a lot of Jewish children who were allowed to leave Germany during the Kindertransport. He never spoke of what he did, but late in his life, his wife discovered the list of the children in his box of memorabilia, and learned a out it. She told someone, who told someone, and they were invited to some recorded gathering. At the end, as the host of the gathering thanked him for his work, he was told to turn around and see someone whose life he'd saved. All the people behind him stood up. He was obviously caught off guard, and teared up. Touching.

[@B0K1T0]

That's interesting to hear. Both of my grandfathers were sent to Germany to do forced labour but in my memory they were always telling stories about those times. The one from my mother's side used to show off Russian lingo or words from other foreign languages he picked up during those times and told me how they sometimes could smuggle some food to Slavic people, or other groups who were treated more poorly by some of the guards (by giving them less to eat, or kicking them in the "toilet" pit "for fun"..). From my other Opa I recall a story he'd told many times about how (just before the German occupation I believe) he had to bring a bunch of grenades from Delft to Scheveningen on his bike, carried in some shitty bag (comparable to your typical plastic shopping bag).

[@YtUser-c1c]

Many children of that time later developed hoarding issues. They would also either eat everything that was put on the table, no scraps left, or would serve really small portions and thus try to save food. My husbands parents did the first, my parents did the latter. My dad could peel a potato so thin, that you could almost read a newspaper through its peel.

[@Romanticanime4ever]

My dad sometimes complains that his mother was stingy when it came to food, and I'm like "She lived through a famine??" She also lives in an area where they take an old Lancaster out for exercise, and to her the sound of the engines is a GOOD sound.

[@Anna-loves-you]

My grandma was one of those people. She hoarded canned beans, she had literally hunderds of cans stacked all throughout the house.

[@ArtSMRdianne]

I learned from an old lady when she was young, her parents would check the peels of potato or apple; if they made a snapping sound while bending, they were too thick and they'd get punished.

[@rosek7114]

My grandma used to 'scold' us for leaving a little bit of yoghurt on the sides of the cup. She would scrape clean our cups and eat it.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

My grandma still has a pantry full of canned stuff.

[@RoGo259]

My grandma shared a cool story about this time with me! During the hongerwinter, my grandma lived in the south of the country, the part of the country that was already liberated. The people there were very eager to try and help the north and so a little refugee girl came to live with my grandmother's family. I don't know if there was some kind of refugee program or if they were smuggled out, but either way a lot of northerners sent their children to the south. My grandma was only 4 years old at the time but later in her life she became pen pals with the refugee girl. A while ago my grandma showed me a letter from that girl, which was actually a wedding invitation. She had survived the war to grow up and get married.

[@joyglocker8318]

I am from Germany and we learn extensively about WWII in school, but I never heard about the Dutch famine. So thank you for telling us; some things should never be forgotten.

[@dorisw5558]

The German occupiers took almost all food from all occupied territories (the east fared a lot worse than the west) back to Germany itself. That is why real hunger and food shortages only hit Germans near the very end of the war and after capitulation.

[@MarianLuca-rz5kk]

What do they teach you extensively about WW2 in German schools?

[@grovermartin6874]

​@@dorisw5558This all explains why all the Germans we got to know when living there had significant stockpiles of food in their homes, garages, in tunnels in their yards. (It had been only 30 years since the war ended, so people still remembered.) One fellow had lived with his mother in a bombed-out root cellar for a couple of years as a young boy.

[@cornelius69]

I guess they weren't too extensive huh

[@pinstripesuitandheels]

​@@MarianLuca-rz5kk so it never happens again.

[@JootjeJ]

One note for stamppot: my grandmother's 1936 cookbook advises to leave the potatoes and any other root vegetables on the bottom of the pan in a layer of water. Pile any leafy vegetables on top (above the water line) and don't stir until everything is cooked. If you're using sausage, that gets cooked on top of the leafy vegetables.

[@XxKamaelxX]

Zo doe ik de boerenkool ook!

[@Leo_1A5]

@@XxKamaelxX ik ook lol

[@sabrinakroesen6791]

That’s how I make it (my Dutch grandma didn’t make it often because Dutch kale is, apparently, really bitter and her kids would ask her not to make it; so I learned my recipe from a Dutch recipe site). I’ve never heard of using two pots - it seems like a big waste of time, and flavour! I put my sausage in half way through so they just warm through but don’t dry out…

[@RKroese]

​@@sabrinakroesen6791hey! Een van het Kroese volkje 😊

[@sabrinakroesen6791]

I’ve been told there’s a fair amount of “us” 😆. I’ve only been to The Netherlands once (only for 36 hours in Amsterdam) but I’m hoping to take my boys there this summer 🤞🤞. Maybe I’ll be able to have enough time to meet some of my Dutch relatives too!!

[@benjamindeboer2300]

My beppe and pake frequently made my brother and I boerenkool stamppot when we were little. Sometimes they would talk about the times when they had to eat tulip bulbs, and drink them ground up. At worst the kids would have to suck on a bulb when no other food was around. Staring down at the bowl of green mash she'd prompt us with her favourite nine letter word "eateateat!" For the boerenkool they used kale frozen by the winter chill, which changes the flavour and texture quite a bit. My pake taught me how to use one of those coffee can stoves. I've got a tin of their typewritten recipes that look just like the one you featured, I should look through to see if there's any mention of bulbs. Thanks for bringing up these memories!

[@Hallows4]

I was waiting for Hepburn to be mentioned. She originally wanted to be a ballerina, but the long-term effects of famine made the dancing too rigorous for her to endure.

[@fugithegreat]

I'd always wondered about Audrey Hepburn's health because she always looked so thin and fragile, and this explains a lot. I never knew this about her. I always learn so much from Max, and the comment section too.

[@terminator572]

To this day I have the biggest crush on Audrey Hepburn

[@kikidevine694]

And it may have had an influence on her cancer

[@aq5426]

And it's why she was always so ardent about the cause of child hunger. She went through it, so she didn't want others to have to go through it.

[@serazvi5387]

​@@RazorsharpLT (usually the same Russian people who starved as children didn't become ballerinas when they were adults)

[@annieclarke349]

Thank you for this video and trying the tulips. My Oma only ever said the taste was both worst and the best thing in the world. I have always wondered, but was too scared to ask more about that time

[@cora1327]

16:12 aerial pictures from the B-17s show that the Dutch had clipped select tulip flowers in the fields so that the pilots and crew could read “THANKS YANKS” as they flew overhead with these shipments

[@sherbetfarts]

Oh that’s gorgeous, I hadn’t noticed! 💖

[@Bert_de_Wit]

And we still teach our children in school who liberated us from the nazis.

[@Vneks]

As a dutch person. Thank you so SO much for covering this. Dutch recipes and war hardships do not get enough recognition. If i may ask, please do something on the dutch east indies. As the people there were also surviving on whatever they could or were given. It gets majorly overshadowed (like a ship a day helfrich)

[@nancykaminski8600]

After DDay, my father’s unit, who was an Army corporal, spent some time in Belgium and the Netherlands. He was a very outgoing man who grew up very poor, and he told me he tried as much as he could to get food to the children he encountered because he knew what it was like to be hungry. He also made friends with and helped a Dutch family, so much so that they sent him and my mother a lovely oil painting done by a member of their family for their wedding in 1947. I have some of the photos he took with his box Brownie camera of the ragged little kids who flocked to him and his fellow soldiers amid the ruins of the villages he passed through.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

I still have a picture of my grandfather as a child in a soup kitchen just after the end of the war. Over a hundred children, almost starving, smiling and eating the food that was delivered by those allied soldiers. I can hardly imagine what they went through and of course, they didnt like to talk about it.

[@RobertJarecki]

About 30 years ago, a Belgian coworker's parents visited her in California. My coworker's mother told me that during WWII, they pulled the wallpaper off the walls, scraped the flour paste off the wall, and the wallpaper for food.

[@metalj]

As a Dutch person I really noticed the quality and accuracy of Jeroen's translation.

[@dantexavier7842]

the stamppot pronounciation made it sound german tho hahaha

[@majuni]

@@dantexavier7842 The pronunciation wasn't exactly correct (it's not so much of an "sh" sound and the vowels need to be flatter) but you can tell he is trying!

[@Vixxin97]

for around the 13:00 ish timestamp: Im a Dutch nurse, working with the last generation of people who lived through this awfull winter. From what I've heard from my patients, the 'food' was so much worse than anyone who has not been forced to eat it can be able to describe. Many horror stories ive heard from my patients about this specific winter, but I'm glad they are still around to share the stories with the younger generation like myself. Also, hats off to you sir for pronouncing Dutch so well😁 We're aware its a tough language haha.

[@rtyrsson]

I can sort through some Dutch (and Afrikaans), since I speak German. But I think it's a lovely language.

[@MissHoneyKitchen]

As another Dutchie: how wonderful that you get to work with this generation! I wish we could write down all their memories!

[@Vixxin97]

@@MissHoneyKitchen It truly is lovely! Ive been an end of life care nurse for 10 years now, and I have to say I've wrote down quite a few of the stories I've been told over those years. I enjoy reading them from time to time

[@MissHoneyKitchen]

Ohh that is lovely to hear, I’m so happy their memories aren’t going to be lost!

[@TrueFork]

@@rtyrsson one could argue that Deutsch is a dialect of Dutch, that split off in the neuhochdeutsche Diphthongierung 😉

[@manonelvera]

My grandfather used to steel bulbs to feed his brothers and sisters. He cut a hole in his pants pocket. Because they were searched. And with a pant leg filled with bulbs he went home. Also, he went on a wooden bike to his aunt dressed as a girl, to prevent getting caught by the Germans. And survived that winter on sugarbeets. This is part of my family's history. Thank you for sharing this part of our history.

[@BrainNinjaMidget]

My grandmother, who grew up in Amersfoort during the winter of '44 to '45 once told me that she could still at age 90+, vividly remember the taste of tulip bulbs and visually shuddered when I asked her about the war. To say that it scarred a generation is an understatement.

[@TotalBrutahl]

My grandparents also experienced the famine, like so many others. Fun fact; my grandmother was from Arnhem and used to play with Audrey Hepburn when they were kids!

[@ΒασιλικήΣαμαρά-ε7ε]

Thank you for mentioning again what Greece has suffered during the Nazi Occupation. If you want to make an entire episode about the famine in WW2 Greece, I would suggest recipes like bobota (a cornmeal bread) or cornmeal porridge, boiled greens (in many cases it was all they had to eat, with very little olive oil) like nettle and kale, using aubergines if availble as substitute for meat or a recipe I read about that used the potato peels to make potatoburgers. They would also generally turn every food into soup adding lot of water to fill the stomach or add raisins to every dish of food to add calories and drink retsina wine which the Germans dispised and did not confiscate. I have read a recipe by the famous early 20th century Greek chef Nikolaos Tselementes, that used aubergines instead of ground meat to stuff tomatoes (Gemista aka stuffed tomatoes and peppers are a beloved greek dish). He would also advice people to collect the breadcrumbs off the table and use them at the end of the week... Note that actual bread was hard to find and they would ground up pretty much anything, even things like lupin beans, to make "flour". They would also make a coffee substitute out of chickpeas. Anyway, if you decide to make an episode about food in occupied Greece I would be happy to help. Keep up the good work!

[@SUDoOnce]

This made me think of my oma. Even though she lived in the south of the Netherlands (Weert), where the shortages were way less, she had suffered. Her parents were cafe owners and did not have much during and after the war. For a time there was little to eat and it affected her later in life. She never threw away any leftovers and whenever she had visitors she would fill the whole table with food. She died last year and I still miss her so much.

[@floydblandston108]

My Dutch In-laws eat a meal they refer to as 'Dutch Delicacy' composed of boiled elbow noodles and canned corned beef, fried slowly in large amounts of margarine, and served with ketchup. My wife and her Father didn't know where this had originated from, so I asked her Grandparents, who were a young married couple late in the war. Only rarely had I ever heard them speak of the years before they'd emigrated to the USA, but they told me that coming out of the famine, US Aid came to them in the form of dry pasta, margarine, and tinned beef, and this was what they lived on until the next years crops had come in.

[@ivohiemstra6839]

I'm dutch and I also eat this from time to time. I think it was passed down in my family, never knew it originated from ww2. I also add tomato paste and fried onions, it's actualy pretty tasty.

[@Erbjen]

I am dutch and my grandma ate something like that and called it 'doktertje' little doctor.

[@wontputmynamehere]

Oh yes... macaroni with spam 😮‍💨This used to be the only thing that my father-in-law could cook, before he retired and had to do most of the housekeeping. When my boyfriend was little his mum was in the hospital for a week. He visited her together with his dad and older brother, and mum asked what they were going to eat that day. His older brother started to whimper: "Not macahoni...?😭". My boyfriend occasionally makes this when he gets a hit of nostalgia. He adds cheese and sliced tomatoes to it, and spices it up a little with Maggi. I wish him well, and eat something else 😅

[@TheBobomama]

Kind of sounds like Hamburger Helper years before it was ever invented

[@floydblandston108]

@@ivohiemstra6839 - I enjoy it myself; the secret is to fry it in a heavy pan like cast iron, slowly at low temperature until it gets crispy on the sides and bottom. 😋

[@waa-art]

The foul taste of tulip bulbs is legendary here in the Netherlands. Somewhere in the 70's I heard a radio interview with someone who was a smal child during the hunger winter: 'I totally loved tulip bulbs the way mom made them. They were delicious!'. It stuck with me because that's something I'd never heard before. I'm glad you managed to kind of corroborate this. And you answered a lot of questions I've head ever since!

[@larsegholmfischmann6594]

Another interesting medical discovery that came out of the Hunger Winter was that (to my knowledge) it is the first time we could observe an epigenetic effect. Children who were in the womb during this time was born with a metabolic system that would store more fat and sugar in the body (leading to overweight and obesity), since the developing fetus was "told" that these things are scarce in the world.

[@belisarius6949]

Pretty interesting, and it kinda shows how chronic poverty and malnutrition in the family often leads to obesity. Despite those two seeming contradictory at first.

[@TheCardinalFang]

Not only that but those babies (i.e. the ones that were in the womb during the famine) have a higher risk of developing schizophrenia. This might be attributed to interruption to foetal brain development, except that THEIR children (i.e. the grandchildren of the women who were pregnant during the famine) also have a higher risk of developing schizophrenia as well. People born of women who were pregnant just before or just after the famine don't show the same risk, suggesting that an epigenetic effect is implicated in that as well.

[@kiltmaster7041]

It's fascinating to me that they knew about this back in the late forties and throughout the fifties. Because I remember reading scientific papers about this in the 2010-2020 period, specifically in experiments with rats. They knew about it for so long, but it wasn't of sufficient scientific interest to merit deeper research for quite a while.

[@MurderousEagle]

this reminds me of the isolation of Celiac during ww1. Flour was harshly rationed on the Italian-Austrian front so the locals couldn't have as much of the staple they were used to, resulting in reduced caloric intake. But some people paradoxically became healthier

[@natasha5306]

Belgian political scientist Tim 'S Jongers, who works in the Netherlands, mentions this in his book 'Armoede uitgelegd aan mensen met geld' ('Poverty explained to people with money').

[@Unzepe]

Thanks for the video. My parents especially my father were hard hit . They live in Amsterdam and Zaandam. My father was send in days after the end the war to the already liberated south to recover. It still hunts him even he is now in his 90’s. He still has contact with the family in Brabant who saved him.

[@jjensen4096]

Thanks for making this one! Im from Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and my grandmother, who went through this ordeal during WWII, recently died at 93. She told me many story’s about “the hungerwinter” and what she had to go through. Bombartments, having no home, my great-grandfather being deported to a working camp and ofcourse the hunger. She told me that her grandfather came begging for food one week before the libaration. They had nothing for him, he died on May 4th, 1945. One day before the liberarion of Rotterdam (and the Netherlands)

[@carmenm.4091]

My grandmother got visitors from allover because they had a farm and could grow a little food. My mother who was born in 41, told me that even German soldiers were hungry and came by and ordered my granny to cook what she had and they offered for instance some butter or bacon and my grandma was allowed to eat it too. Where was grandpa? Hiding under the floor boards. So he wouldn’t be caught and sent off to work in Germany.

[@Grnhrz]

My grandpa did the same! One German soldier asked my uncle who was only a toddler then where his father was and he pointed down at the floor boards. Luckily the German soldier didn’t understand that he actually was hiding down there.

[@kitefan1]

@@Grnhrz Perhaps the soldier thought the father was dead.

[@bruno-bnvm]

@@Grnhrz Or played dum, maybe he didnt liked to kill.

[@glitterstarlet]

My grandma was born during the occupation and lived through this as a little girl. She had a very similar experience to Audrey Hepburn with health problems. This famine led to a lot of research on epigenetics and how they can change your genes and pass things down to future generations, we're still feeling it's impact today.

[@Moonpearl121]

It was the same with the Spanish flu at the beginning of the 20th century - people who recovered often had health problems throughout their lives. I think we will see similar long term effects from covid.

[@pheart2381]

Audrey and her family spent an entire winter eating just endive. Few people today..we are spoilt actually by war standards.

[@littlekong7685]

@@Moonpearl121 We are seeing it. Children born after to people who survived traumatic injury from Covid show different immune responses and lower immune responses in general (likely due to the mothers immune system having been damaged and unable to fully share with the fetus).

[@Nikkita-b4d]

Same. My gram was born in 1933 USA during great depression. It's so hard to imagine being pregnant during that time and not knowing if you and the baby we're going to survive. Our grand and great grandparents were the original survivors

[@phantomkate6]

​@@Moonpearl121We already continuously see similar with viruses like Epstein Barr and there is no reason a severe covid infection would be different, so probably yes.

[@bywd]

It all sounds so far away but my grandma lost her youngest brother during the hunger winter. she passed only 2 years ago but i still miss her and her famous vegetable soup (she always made a little extra for me to take home because she knew i loved it so much)

[@gwammeh]

Even before the hunger winter, food was pretty scarce because the Germans would take most of it in my area. My grandmother came home from getting groceries one day to find her neighbors leering at her cat and asking, "Whose cat is that?" (i.e. would someone notice if it went missing?) She immediately informed them it was hers, picked it up, and hurried inside. Eventually, my grandparents barely had enough food to feed themselves, let alone the cat, and there just weren't enough mice for the cat to catch anymore, so the cat grew so weak it could barely hold its head up. My grandfather had to put it out of its misery, and it still tore him up decades later. My aunt was actually born during the war. During the hunger winter she would eat her scraps of food and *beg* for more but my grandmother was already doing all she could to get food at all.

[@gbat6727]

My late Mother in law told similar stories. But the real scary story she told was of her and her younger sister going through a check point the German soldiers offered the sister a plate of food but told her she was too fat. Why is that scary they were taking some cleaner to a neighbor cleaner inside the can was plans for the dyke(her father was one of the enginers of the dykes) and had been questioned a number of times. and she knew if found they would shoot both of them. She also said the bulb were prepared so they won't kill you but are not edible at all.

[@LJBSullivan]

That is painful to read. I hope all family members survived and never knew true hunger again.

[@gwammeh]

@@LJBSullivan Fortunately they did! This despite a spot of needing to go into hiding because my grandfather, who was already on the Germans' shitlist, *also* chose to dodge their work orders, and he almost got caught once because the Germans had gotten wind that Something Was Up at the farm my grandfather was in hiding at. My grandfather died at the ripe old age of 89 and my grandmother at 94. My aunt is still alive today! Edit: 89, not 99. Maths is hard.

[@grovermartin6874]

​@@gwammehThe Dutch collectively have a long lifespan.

[@HRM.H]

The north and east had it much harder compared to the rest of the country.

[@daynamorris2399]

Wholesome fact: the Dutch send Canada tulips every year as a thank you for housing their queen during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. There's a festival in Ottawa because of it

[@robinbrowne5419]

I live in Ottawa and sometimes go to the tulip festival. There are tulips planted beside some roadways.

[@TheObnoxiousMrPug]

Not the queen, Wilhelmina, who lived in exile in London for the duration of the war, but the crown princess, Juliana, who would become queen eventually, and her children, the future queen Beatrix and her sister Irene. Princess Margriet, Juliana's third child, was born in Canada and is part of the reason for the annual tulip thing.

[@draganap3241]

​@@TheObnoxiousMrPug Yes, and because princess had to be born on Dutch soil, Canadian government designated part of the hospital as Dutch soil. And the Ottawa tulip festival is lovely. I go every year since it is beginning of properly warm weather in Ottawa.

[@oeautobody3586]

@@daynamorris2399 sweet tradition

[@Stefanius058]

Our royal family sucks big time, always cowards that run away from everything and leave their people to suffer. And then unfortunatly our people are so dumb, they let them rule over us with their incompetence.

[@ducomaritiem7160]

My mother (88) and my late father lived in Amsterdam during the hunger winter. They were children of course. They had and have vivid memories of that period. Like the awful clay-like bread, the tulip bulbs, searching for bits of fuel under the rails of the tram (poor quality coal was used for a railbed). My father was so starved by the end of the war that he was send to Switzerland with thousands of other children. He lived with a Swiss family for a year to get stronger. He stayed in contact with this family till the end of his life.

[@carolynlindblad3140]

Another excellent episode about the real history of real people and the food they ate. (I had a hard time posting my full comment before). It is so important to not forget nor neglect the lives of the people who lived and died in this times and how that occurred. Few people make the connection between culture and history and place these days but Tasting History does it again and again, thus is my Tuesday staple. You remind us of the "lesser" stories. Thank you. I would love to see an episode on Swedish Bark Bread (it is what it sounds like, bread made using bark), The history stretches from the Viking age to modern day. Recipes are quite available and I would happily provide translations! Cheers and keep on carrying on!

[@heidimisfeldt5685]

I would much appreciate learning more about that 😊❤.

[@kitefan1]

@@heidimisfeldt5685 Sometimes I think KZbin boots you out if you have posted more than once or if you have been reading for a while.

[@LurkerSmurf]

I've seen an interview with Audrey Hepburn describing her experience during the famine. It may be on the UNICEF site, since it's what drove her to be a spokesperson for them.

[@georgiafrye2815]

Because of her hunger as a child in WWIll Audrey was said to hoard chocolates in her drawers in her dressing room. She never forgot.

[@cptant7610]

One thing to note is that the bulbs they ate in the war were not planted the year before because of the war and were in storage for a long time, this meant their quality was degraded and they were very dried out.

[@citrus.333]

I really appreciate this video! As a Dutch Canadian there's a lot of history there. Canada gets millions of tulip bulbs every year because of their assistance in liberating the Netherlands. Even saving their royal family at the time. Both my Oma and Opa surived the hunger winter and my Oma spoke of the tulip soup and how it was just awful. They both had life long health effects due to the hunger winter, since it happened when they were children. My Opa ended up with stunted growth, so he was rather small for a dutchman. They've both passed on now, but every Sunday I make Stamppot in their honour. But, I think I'll keep my tulips in my garden, instead of my bowl. I don't think they'd mind < 3 Again, lovely video. Thank you.

[@heidimisfeldt5685]

Do you use onions in the place of tulip bulbs, or what would you use ??

[@citrus.333]

@@heidimisfeldt5685 Oh yes, I usually caramelize my onions and add them in then do a rough mash and use butter instead of oil. I've even done shallots and leeks as well : )

[@Bert_de_Wit]

​@@citrus.333Thank you so much for your little story. You honoring your grandparents like that is awesome!

[@tandrerafferty]

Thank you so much for delving into the Dutch WW2 history. My father's family is Dutch-Indonesian and many of my family suffered both at the hands of the Germans and at the hands of the Japanese. We have family stories passed down about the ways they would keep themselves fed during the famine. Because of these hardships, it was drilled into us by my grandparents to NEVER waste food. Not even one grain of rice. And my grandmother stockpiled enough food for her family of five to last 2 years. After my grandmother passed away, our family was finally able to go into the basement of their home and what we found was enough to make us all cry. She had BARRELS of rice, pallets of canned and tinned meats, cases and cases of soda, air tight & sealed over twenty 100 lbs sacks of flour. It was heart wrenching to see her prepare for another famine. To this day I scrape every last bit of food out of the containers and practice conscious food rationing even when not needed. Stuff like that will stay with you even generations later. Thanks for making the Stamppot. It makes me think of the good times I spent with my grandparents. ❤

[@LJBSullivan]

Poor grandma. She must have suffered so.

[@patricialynveal4017]

The next one is coming, her prep was not in vain, it goes in cycles due to climate each year, war, on purpose destruction of soil and seed.

[@Tinky1rs]

I feel you man. my grandfather grew up in the dutch indies and was in a "jappenkamp" (japanese internment camp). They were forced to harvest rubber, and he survived by having a rat trap. The stories of that place were horrid, and I never heard them from him directly.

[@tandrerafferty]

​@@Tinky1rs yeah. My Opa would never talk about his time as a prisoner. His health was bad after the war and suffered the rest of his life because of that.

[@JJMarkin]

My parents had the same problem with wasting food. They were both in Indonesia, my mother (17 years old) was in an internment camp; my father (in his twenties) in a prison camp -- he had joined the underground agains the Japanese, and his cell was betrayed and rounded up. He never talked about that time, save for one story: at one point, they were allowed some meat, as a special treat; they were given a choice: about two bites' worth of dog meat, or a mouse. He loved dogs far too much and ate the mouse, instead. Many years later, long after he had died, I was digging through a box of old photos and came across a photo of a skeletally thin human being behind barbed wire. I couldn't figure out why, when my family had spent the war in Indonesia, we had a photo of an Auschwitz survivor ... And then I realized the face of the man in the photo looked familiar. THat was my father, in a photo taken probably within days of the liberation. The Honger Winter isn't part of my immediate family history, but I can certainly undertand how horrible it was.

[@dennisb9638]

Wow Max, such a well researched and well told story! My grandmother, who died two years ago at the age of 103, lived through the Hunger Winter in the city of Rotterdam. She never ate tulip bulbs, but she did eat the sugar beets, that tasted awful, as she recalled. She vividly remembered the Swedish white bread. She also said that it was like eating cake, after so many months of eating scraps and watery soups.

[@JeroenWijnands]

I'm proud to have helped bring this dark period of my country's history to the attention of many. Well done Max! Great episode!

[@vriesvakkie1]

Well done Jeroen!

[@guido9580]

"Als het niet zo was voor de Tulpen, dan was ik dood geweest" -Piet van Beelen, Mijn Opa

[@eastfrisian_88]

Verschrikkelijke tijden 😢

[@FoodNerds]

Oh wow!

[@zinzolin14]

I looove the Florges in a vase in the back

[@hallarempt183]

The hunger winter took about ten years of my mother's life (as well as her younger sister's life). My gran walked all the way to Friesland to get some food... And then my granddad came home in the middle of the hunger winter, having successfully escaped from a kfz in Poland.

[@aliaaamin1419]

Bless them all ❤

[@LHaggard]

great story. KFZ means Kraftfahrzeug = car. you mean a KZ = Konzentrationslager

[@alterego9082]

*in occupied Poland* it means a lot for us Poles to make that distinction, as actual government of Israel tried a few years back to push Nazi crimes unto us

[@i.b.640]

Yeah, that was weird. As if a kidnapper broke into an apartment, laid waste to it, killed half the occupants killed the kidnapped person, and then the family of the kidnapping victims sue the surving occupants of the appartement that was broken into...

[@billmuray]

​@@alterego9082polish people did nazi crimes to. Don"t talk like its Not like that.

[@JimNorkas-qx4nt]

I saw a WW2 UNITED STATES AFMY AIR CORPS veteran's recollection of dropping food from their bomber. He teared up and said it was a perfect end to his war. "Helping people instead of killing them." Among his missions over Germany was the infamous firebombing of Dresden.

[@sxmxxx]

I saw that too it made me cry. Such an amazing man and amazing generation of humans.

[@BredaToon]

Loved this. My grandma from Groningen, Holland, lived through the hunger winter and remembered it vividly. Her mom rode her bike to Leeuwarden because of a rumour that a farmer over there might have a few extra potatoes, both ways a total 7 hour bike ride in freezing temperatures. Crazy to think about, and it makes me a bit guilty for discarding potato peels. 😅

[@GothCookie]

Thanks so much for shining a light on this not so well-known part of the war. My grandmother was a little girl during the war and lived on a farm with her parents and luckily, they didn't suffer so much from starvation due to their own supply of vegetables from their farm and garden. But grandma did tell us that during the Hunger Winter, they would get knocks on the door from people sent out by their families to try and beg for a little bit of food to bring back. They often came on bikes with no tires because the Germans had basically stolen even the tires off their bicycles earlier in the war. Nearing the end, my great-grandfather often had to turn them away with nothing because otherwhise, his own family wouldn't be able to survive. (And the small Jewish family who lived in the hay attic in the barn, hiding from the germans)

[@susanamariapereirasoares7188]

My father in law was one of those people who went on a tireless bike to get a sack of potaoes

[@garyrowden7150]

your grandma was very brave, i watch a lot of docos on the war and only recently learned just how dire it was in the Netherlands near the end of the war

[@Thalawest]

My Oma might have been one of those who came to the farm. As eldest daughter, it was her responsibility to go for food on her bicycle, and yes, there were no tyres on the bicycle towards the end, although I don't know if they'd been stolen or simply had so many punctures she could no longer patch them. I believe her father was hiding in the house basically for the whole war, and we suspect that there may be Jewish blood in the family.

[@katherinekeller4149]

"And the small Jewish family who lived in the hay attic in the barn, hiding from the germans" Your great-grandfather clanked when he walked. What an astoundingly brave and kind thing to do.

[@flyonthewall8122]

​@@Thalawest Or possibly, he hid to avoid being taken to a German work camp.

[@christafranken9170]

My grandmother talked about growing up in Gelderland (central Netherlands) during this time. She had vivid memories of the skeletal like figures who had walked all the way from Holland to sell their wedding rings for scraps. Her father would sell a little to each so everyone would have some and he wouldn't ask for more then the food was worth, but many others weren't so kind and would take advantage of the poor people desperate to feed their families. When the Canadians came, they camped on the farm my grandmother grew up and lived for most of her life. If she, her siblings and the children of the evacuated families living in the dael (stable attached to the house) went to wish them goodnight, they would get chocolates or soaps. Appearantly, these strange men were a bit scary, but the chocolates were very good!

[@barbaraoxford]

My dad said the same thing about the Canadians. Apparently, they gave him cigarettes as well(he was 8!) I remember my grandfather and his brothers talking about ferrying food and people through the Biesbosch.. I am not sure if they wanted to help or make a profit . I hope they wanted to help.

[@christafranken9170]

@barbaraoxford ah yes, always motivated to do the right thing, especially when it makes a profit 😅 Smuggling does sound like a risky endeavor in those days though..

[@robertyoung2661]

My grandfather remembered the greedy "alleen goud" (only gold) signs outside some farms... These farmers knew WW2 era money might be useless soon, and only accepted (large amounts of) gold.

[@barbaraoxford]

@christafranken9170 .You're probably right. I feel like I should have paid better attention to the stories.

[@Milonification]

My grandfather is from the west and wrote an autobiography of his life including the part where he lived in the hunger winter as a kid. He details being sent to a farm far away from home (appearantly this was common for children from the west in the hunger winter) and stealing potatoes from the germans at great risk. Also, the family he stayed at hosted 2 jews. It is a miracle this man made it out alive and i am very grateful for it. My other grandfather was taken away for forced labour, so when you started to talk abt that that hit me emotionally. I feel even in my generation the intergenerational trauma of WWII is still very much present, even if mostly in subconscious ways

[@Nubianette]

The 1 time I went to Amsterdam, I was in the laundromat. I talked to the laundry lady and she told me that besides age, you can tell the people who were very negatively affected by the famine. They were much shorter than their parents were, and definitely shorter than their children. I really noticed this years prior in Germany. So many small, elderly people hunched over. Something you rarely see in the US. So, I started seeing these people not just as elderly, but I’d see what they endured as a small child. Heart breaking! But, they did survive. I wish humans were better!

[@Taliesin6]

Growing up in the Netherlands i always thought that that was how old people looked by default.

[@elinebrouwer3259]

My maternal grandma is one of those tiny elderly. I wouldn't be surprised if this was partly genetics but she was also born with ricketts in the middle of the war in The Hague. She was probably malnourished.

[@heidimisfeldt5685]

​@@elinebrouwer3259 rickets is a definitely great lack of vitamin D. In adults it will manifest as osteoporosis.

[@sarahvnyc]

My grandma lived through WWI as a small child and was a German Jewish refugee from WWII (she lived near the Poland/German border IIRC), and she was under five feet tall. She never once mentioned WWI in my presence and barely mentioned WWII/the Holocaust, too much trauma... so I don't know any details. Her kids, grandkids and great grandkids are each taller than the previous generation.

[@Thalawest]

I think my Oma was short, but I don't remember clearly. I was 12 when she died, and I didn't even realise she had a strong accent until years later!

[@nicerainbow3368]

What you mention at 5:30 is what my grandmother had to do during this time. With a family of 7 iirc, they went around collecting patato peels and making soup of them. She didn't talk much about the war, except for the fact she disliked the taste of that soup. After the war she was forced to go live with another family because there wasn't enough food to go around in hers.

[@Rose01bloom]

My grandmother ate tulip bulbs and was made to take cod liver oil. She won't eat fish to this day!

[@livingdeadgirl5691]

My grandfather did this too in Croatia! His sister, cousin and he were left stranded after his aunt was murderd, so stealing scraps and garbage was the only way to survive. My grandmothers sister on the other hand stole a goats heart from the butcher and got in trouble for it.

[@joshsmith8475]

As a lover of both food and History, It is always a good day for a new episode of Tasting History! I am especially loving this series of how people were living and eating during WW2. There is plenty of coverage of tactics and battles, but not enough coverage of how the people who supported the soldiers and the war effort from their home countries were living at the time. Keep up the great work!

[@TastingHistory]

Happy to dish it up

[@ThinWhiteAxe]

​@@TastingHistory Don't you mean you're happy to serve it forth? 😏😉

[@SuspiciousKobold]

My grandmother who lived through this used to get so upset if I would peel a potato any further than scraping the dirt off and cleaning it. Up until the day she passed she instructed me on how to peel potatoes, and clean onions, carrots, etc without any waste.

[@LovelyBertha-d6e]

She's right. Thats where the flavor is. Next time you eat a baked potato. After you've finished the innards, feast upon the skins and you will understand.

[@flyonthewall8122]

​@@LovelyBertha-d6e My granny said that was where the vitamins were. I don't know whether that's correct, but the flavor sure is.

[@sueblankenship9441]

Potato peels are good when you fry them in oil. They taste better than potato chips.

[@andersjjensen]

@@sueblankenship9441 Yup. And they taste even better if you fry them in bacon grease. That way you also get one delicacy instead of two wastes.

[@morrigankasa570]

I grew up eating Potatoes with most of the Skin & even as an adult I still do so.

[@chaliceflower]

A couple of decades I worked as a hospital chaplain. One of my co-chaplains was Dutch & was a little girl during this exact winter. She spoke about the starvation. She also said that when she & other children went outside to "play" they had to be very quiet so as to not draw the attention of the occupying troops. Her father was among many men who hid in the attics of their homes. Even as an adult she still had nutritional issues; she would frequently develop "water blisters" as a result of the lack of nutrition as a child.

[@pollywaffledoodah3057]

An old friend of mine - now in his 90s - was a child in Holland during this time of starvation. He was 8 years old, and was a Jewish boy, taken in by an order of nuns, who were running an orphanage. He was one of several Jewish children, who took refuge with the nuns, and luckily, the Nazis had no clue that they were Jewish. He told me about the day that the local Catholic priest came to the orphanage, and this priest was very excited. He was carrying a big bucket of white paint, and he told all the kids to get brushes, and to pick up large rocks from the grounds of the orphanage, and to paint them all white. "We are expecting some visitors today, children!' he smiled. 'Where are they from, Father?; asked the kids. 'From America!' said the priest. After lots of rocks were all painted, he got the kids to arrange them in huge letters all along the driveway to their orphanage. They did not understand these 3 English words - but of course, the priest did. That afternoon, big American planes flew low over the ground, dropping food parcels as they zoomed past. My old friend told me, the planes were so close, he could see the US pilots waving and smiling down at the kids, who were mad with joy, as the pilots threw chocolate and chewing gum out of their windows for them to catch. What were the words the kids had made with the white rocks? 'WE THANK YOU!'

[@gideonros2705]

The irony that it was the US banking cabals that started the war by causing The Great Depression which is the context of the war.

[@daedubois9428]

I like this

[@chucklebutt4470]

Dang, this kinda brought tears to my eyes. Really cool story.

[@L33tLady]

What an awesome story! ❤😊

[@Ben-Downlow.]

This made water come out of my face. Must have something in my eye. Tks.

[@Maisha_Leo]

Every year, the Dutch send tulips to Canada to honor them for hosting their queen during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. There is a festival in Ottawa because of it.

[@nerdisaur]

I live in Ottawa! The tulip festival is an event we’re very proud to celebrate. We also sheltered the Dutch royal family during the war. We have a statue to commemorate the relationship, with a matching one in the Netherlands

[@esthermcafee5293]

And we declared the hospital where Princess Margriet was born in Ottawa to be ‘extraterritorial’ so that she technically wasn’t born in a foreign country.

[@cherisseepp5332]

@@esthermcafee5293Yup, if I remember correctly, that required an emergency meeting of parliament as that isn’t something that would be done under normal conditions.

[@helena19741]

Not only for hosting the family but for liberating our country!

[@haggis525]

Well... Canada did better than that: we liberated Holland from the Nazis... two of my uncles were among the Canadian soldiers on Dutch soil then. Sidebar: I was stationed in West Germany during the Cold War and on my travels through western Europe back then I was treated beyond well by the folks in Holland. True that it was only 35 years since the liberation so maybe these days our treatment would be less stellar. Who knows.

[@EternalSidus]

My grandmother born in Breda was born during the war. After the hunger winter her and many of her siblings were send to special nutritional "camps" it was meant for children suffering of severe malnutrion to be fed by the government and then return home after a couple of weeks and gaining enough weight. Her stories are just crazy to hear. times have changed so much

[@AeciusthePhilosopher]

My grandparents, especially on my father's side of the family, lived through the Hunger Winter where it hit hardest (the occupied north and west). Many in their generation would reprimand their children, and later grand children for saying they were hungry by stating "You're not hungry, you have an appetite." They had known hunger, and what you feel when you're hungry was nowhere close to that.

[@jannywitvoet4268]

Exactly, my mother didn’t allow us to say that we were hungry. We could say that we would like something to eat

[@perfectallycromulent]

I understand their point of view. But "hungry" is the normal word people use in this situation. Telling your children that they're using language incorrectly when they're using it correctly is cruel to those children. You're scolding them for doing nothing wrong, and, indeed, giving them information that is itself wrong.

[@Mediumcoffee14]

@@perfectallycromulentI agree. They were beyond hungry, they were starving.

[@dionb5276]

@@perfectallycromulent try telling that to someone who survived that famine. They will tell you in graphic detail what months of intense hunger means and as for cruelty. depriving a child of vocabulary to describe it is worse. If you haven't lived through something like that, you don't get to decide on the terminology. I made that mistake with one of my oldest colleagues early in my career. She had survived 1944 as a young girl. You do not say 'hunger' around her for anything trivial. Period.

[@Misty-up4jz]

Buddy you're not supposed to bully your children just because you had a hard life, why do you think so many people are fucked up mentally now? You live through the hard times so your descendents never have to, you don't get to lord that over them just because you're good at feeding them. Absolutely narcissistic behaviour that was very common among the baby boomers and previous generation who lived through those wars.

[@painthorse1234]

Years ago I had my own hairdressing salon in our small town. There was a family that moved to town that were probably in their sixties or seventies. She was from Holland and told me about having to eat tulip bulbs. Her mother would send her to the flower nursery to buy the bulbs and the first time she went they asked her what color of flower she wanted so they could give her the proper bulb. She was a young teenager and very shy. She was very surprised by the question and was embarrassed to tell them they were for eating and just blurted out a color. She said she was very self conscious about going again. The bulbs were relatively cheap and there really wasnt much else to eat so that is what they ate

[@julieb3996]

So many personal heart felt stories, I am reading about in the chat! I am grateful for this episode, I learned alot.

[@JaceyMitchell]

Thank you for this episode, Max. I was blessed to know my great-grandmother on my mom's side, who was Dutch and survived the Hunger Winter of World War II, and she would talk about it often. The famine striking such a short time after the Dutch believed they had already been liberated on Mad Tuesday on September 5, 1944 was such a mental blow to those still in the occupied territories. She traveled across the country on foot with two babies in search of food, because it was rumored food was more abundant in the east of the country, closer to the German border in Drenthe and Gelderland (she was from Leiden in the west of the country, although through sheer bad luck she happened to be in Rotterdam in May of 1940 when the Germans attacked). Her husband, my great-grandfather, was in a labor camp. My grandmother didn't know if he was even still alive until after the war. The Hunger Winter, and the Stuka bombing raids at the start of the war were never far from her thoughts. Any loud noise, like loud music for example, would make her panic. Also (his is gonna make me sound pedantic, but it's a very common misconception so I understand completely where it's coming from): unlike in German, the "st" combination doesn't change the pronunciation of the "s" into "sh". So it's just pronounced "stamppot", rather than "shtamppot". You nailed the vowels though. Stamppot is amazing, so simple, easy to make, and hearty, and you can zest it up pretty much any way you like. Plus: it turns a relatively small portion of vegetables into a regular sized meal by combining it with mashed potato. My favorite is endive stamppot, which is traditionally made with little pieces of bacon in it. Sauerkraut stamppot and kale stamppot are also pretty great. It's simple, hearty, cheap, traditional working class food, designed to fill the bellies of your family with the few guilders you had in your pocket, but I find it absolutely delightful, and if you're not in the mood for the classics, there's virtually limitless potential for variation.

[@MatthewCobalt]

I always love this subgenre of "Desperation Cooking." In a world where food is scarce, and taste is scarcer, the cooking of something half-edible is always interesting to look back on.

[@theone5902]

We poor Dutchies still eat this before we ice skate to our jobs or school

[@mojewjewjew4420]

@@theone5902 you poor since when? I though your country was rich,if you want to really know what poor means look at Eastern Europe.

[@jackdaw99]

To look back on, but maybe also prepare for again? I feel we’re always a pretty short step from possibly being there again (and some people are there as we speak).

[@theone5902]

@ its a joke bro. chill

[@PrebleStreetRecords]

That’s what a ton of Southern US food is derived from, things like poke sallet.

[@mvis]

Thank you for doing this recipe! We still reference the eating of flower bulbs nowadays, that's how deeply rooted the Hongerwinter is in our society. I'm surprised to see it wasn't that distasteful.

[@TastingHistory]

A good thing if so many people were eating them

[@heidimisfeldt5685]

I have heard about it time and again, on the internet. So much history available at our fingertips. 🌷🌷🌷

[@kitefan1]

Even good stuff probably starts to taste less than good when you are eating it everyday for a month or a year.

[@123ricardo210]

It's also worth pointing out that the taste differs (like said in the video). I've tried some once (in a museum) that were so bitter I genuinely felt like throwing up.

[@kisiver]

I was so excited when I saw this episode, my great grandmother told a lot of stories from that time, while she was still living in amsterdam, for example, one day during the hunger winter, they found 2 potatoes, and they were so so happy, that day they made potato salad, potato soup and stamppot, all from those 2 potatoes, she was one of the only people in her neighbourhood who knew what she could eat out of nature, during this time she didnt go to school, but after the war she was one of the first women in the netherlands to go to a gymnasium (highest education in the netherlands bassicly) for many years after the war she would still jump underneath the kitchen table as soon as she heard a plane... she died in 2019 at 85 years old.

[@AJansenNL]

My grandmother told me she had to flee her house during the battles around Arnhem (late 1944). When she came back, all her carefully preserved food had been eaten and the jars had been used as chamber pots by the soldiers. She and my father (who was 6 years old) most have been so hungry that winter. My grandfather had his own gruelling ordeal. He had been sent to do forced labour at the Krups factories. He escaped a few times, but was mentally scarred for life. Poor oma, poor opa. Poor dad.

[@LJBSullivan]

Indeed, civilians suffer a lot. They are trying to have families survive and trying to protect them. Mentally and physically testing.

[@thedeadpoolwhochuckles.6852]

Pour some sugar on me!

[@oliverwells3090]

My Oma told me a story of an American soldier giving her a chocolate bar and how that was one of the best things she had ever eaten. Both my Oma and Opa would feed me like crazy when i visited because they always remembered growing up hungry. My grandpa (UK) was too young to fight but joined the navy to deliver food to the Dutch people after the war was over when in the Netherlands he got this tile depicting the planes dropping food for the people, i still have it now.

[@RookieAssassin]

Omg this comment totally reminds me of my dear oma ❤ I miss her! It clearly had such a huge impact on them cause my oma said the same thing and also fed us a lot, especially chocolate when we came to visit. Even when she had dementia the memory of the Americans soldiers coming and giving them all candy like chocolate and chewing gum was so clear and she kept looking back on it in fondness. She also told of how she was perplexed when the Americans came and their boots made “no sound”, cause the Germans all had steel under their boots so when they’d march it would make a lot of sound and that sound was very threatening. But the Americans had rubber boots so you didn’t hear them coming from afar.

[@Shah0fBlah]

As a Dutchman, having talked to my dad an many other family members who lived through this period, you have still surprised me with all the information in this video, the information I can check is all correct, leading me to trust all the information I can not check. Most of the family have severe war trauma so cannot really talk much about the war. There are stark stories about eating pets and the bark of trees lining the roads. Thank you for shining a light on this and all the information on this period. I followed your channel for years but never imagined it would ever hit this close to the bone. It

[@amyburl3826]

This one made me sad. Unbelievable what everyone went through. Thank you for all of the work put into this.

[@ASKSer79]

I know you don’t get political, but I really enjoy that you have your finger on the pulse of a lot of unspoken feelings right now and people afraid of how to stretch a dollar and fears of wars on the horizon. And here you are talking about the amazing perseverance of people that have had to go through so much more. Max, you’re always inspiring and I’m so glad you’ve made such a success of your talents, hard work and love. You have a very calming effect and I hope you feel the love back that you give

[@serazvi5387]

I noticed this too with the recent depression era videos he's been releasing lately. It is helpful to remember that people have survived worse and come out the other side to see the opportunity to heal and rebuild.

[@heidimisfeldt5685]

Definitely, hope in God can be, and indeed is found among the rubble and ashes. It comes from deep inside the heart, God wispers quietly to the human heart. That still small voice described in scriptures, some call it a gut feeling. Always harken unto that still small voice, because it really is God speaking to our heart. ❤🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@baronburch6702]

@@heidimisfeldt5685 There is no God. And if there were than it would be responsible for this and not worthy of worship. Stop scamming folks.

[@truthtriumphant]

@@baronburch6702All these wars and famines are of the devil and not Yahweh God.

[@thexbigxgreen]

1:34 "Using tulip bulbs as a *flour* substitute" 😂

[@maxi-me]

IKR! Loved that... _"Embrace the hearty goodness of Flower Flour"_ 😅

[@Iflie]

Children would get send to farmers who managed to have some more food than people in the cities. They managed to hide some from the germans and as you say if potatoes were left in the ground over winter hard work could still get some out. City people would grab whatever they could that had wheels and walk all the way to Friesland to farms and trade for little food, maybe a bag of potatoes and then they'd walk all the way back. All of itshows how important it is to have food production nearby. If food transport becomes hampered at least where I live the farms around around the town, we can get our basics. If your country depends on food from outside the counttry you are in deep trouble for a long time.

[@BananaPeelEuroTrash]

For those that want to try out some Dutch stamppots: My fave stamppot is with endive and you usually just mash the chopped raw endive directly into the boiled potatoes with a bit of butter. Tastes surprisingly fresh! Using stir-fried bok choy as a vegetable to mash is also really nice. Thanks for the shoutout to a very important part of Dutch history Max. Very well done as usual! Love from the Hague!

[@tombogaert1015]

Or boerenkool with smoked sausage 🤤🤤🤤

[@HanjiThePooh]

I would go for zuurkool! Sauerkraut with little pieces of bacon!

[@BananaPeelEuroTrash]

@ Don't forget to make an indentation to pour in the gravy ;)

[@myheartismadeofstars]

I was always told to boil everything together (including sausage) and then mash the potatoes and veggies.

[@BananaPeelEuroTrash]

@@myheartismadeofstars Really depends on the kind of vegetable used. With stuff like Hete Bliksem and Peen en Ui you will probably boil the potatoes and veggies together but a lot of people like to use raw andive or kale for Andijviestamppot or Boerenkoolstamppot :)

[@nitatessier5877]

Thanks!

[@The_Smith]

My Dad was involved with the liberation of the Netherlands. He did mention the little stoves made from tin cans, how the people were even breaking up furniture to use in them, and how grateful they were when they give them their rations, I have a couple small pieces of art that were given to him in thanks. And how they could get all the information they wanted on the occupiers for a few pieces of chocolate.

[@dionb5276]

It went further than furniture. Our last house was in what - before the war - had been a Jewish working class area of Amsterdam. It was built in the 1920s but the floors always looked odd, a bumpy patchwork. In the winter of 1944, a lot of the neighbourhood was deserted - Jewish inhabitants having been deported to extermination camps between 1942 and 1944. So when the bitter cold and starvation hit the city. locals went into the abandoned houses and didn't just take furniture but actually stripped floorboards and beams for firewood. After the war there was a housing crisis due to all the war damage, so the buildings were repaired quickly and cheaply - and filled with people who had lost houses elsewhere.. All that remains to remind us of what happened before is the irregular floors and the many Stolpersteine in the pavements outside the houses.

[@Bert_de_Wit]

Your dad was involved in the liberation of the Netherlands? Then your dad is considered an absolute hero around here. We have not forgotten!

[@The_Smith]

@@Bert_de_Wit Thanks Bert, he was with the Carleton and York, (Canadians) he's been gone quite a while now so not sure what actions they were involved with.

[@mione3690]

My grandparents survived the hunger winter. Though they died when I was young, it still influenced my parents, and thus me; to always have food in storage, to use all edible parts of a plant (which we learned to grow in a tiny garden)

[@Rob_Kankerboef]

Thank you for covering this part of Dutch History, every Dutch family to this day will have stories about how their parents or grandparents had to live through hungerwinter, whether they suffered the famine or not. My family lived in the southern part of the Netherlands that was already liberated and it was very common for people to take in children from parts of the country were the famine was real bad, or saving up as much food as possible to bring to those suffering from the famine. I'm convinced that every Dutch person to this day has heard their parent or grandparent tell them ''Je hebt geen honger, je hebt trek'' or ''Gelukkig weten wij niet wat honger is'', roughly tranlasting too ''you're not hungry, you'd just like some food.'' and ''Luckily, we don't know what hunger is.''

[@hilledussel1025]

All my grandparents thankfully had an okay 'Hongerwinter' since they were from the north of the Netherlands, where we have loads of farms. I asked my last remaining grandma a while ago about her Hongerwinter and she told me that she mainly recalls having white bread for her birthday, but that her brother had a hard time that winter while being in the city, fleeing from the Germans (he didn't want to do forced labour). And funny to see that the borscht-inspired stamppot I made yesterday at home is quite similar to yours! (but i had pumpkin instead of tulips)

[@mfbfreak]

Same for my paternal grandparents. Frysian people. They did not have a lot, but they did have enough to survive and be out of danger. But my grandpa used to steal at night from the farm where he worked in the daytime. He stole parts of wooden fences to fire the stove at home, and i assume vegetables too if they were already ready to be harvested. German soldiers were housed in many farms. Bored young guys. They didn't give the farmers too much trouble - never bite the hand that feeds. My maternal grandparents barely spoke about the war. They lived north of the North Sea Channel so within an hour of cycling of very fertile farmland, so they had it better than the folks in Amsterdam i have to assume, and my city was never the centre of any battles. But when the subject came up, my grandma just said it was awful and quickly changed the subject.

[@szariq7338]

I hope that when you come to the topic of Poland you'll talk about how our grandpas managed to become masters of smuggling as I've heard of so many stories of how people smuggled stuff and how they've saved themselves when busted, like hiding stuff in a coffin labeled as typhus infested, so that Germans wouldn't touch it or that during illegal slaughter a patrolling German found some people, so they quickly bribed him with a huge piece of pork and a whole rabbit, which saved their life by that German quickly exiting the home to tell other patrolling Germans it was all clear. Some even managed to earn a fortune by smuggling.

[@heidimisfeldt5685]

That's amazing.

[@yaeltuttebel]

A lot of dutch people walked all the way to the farmers in the north. My great grandfather walked from the Hague to Groningen as a little boy. That's more than 200km! Editing to add more; my great grandmother was a little girl and her parents made her steal food from rich people/german officers. Which was so dangerous!

[@kerokero_furogu]

My Polish grandfather ate parts of his dead brother who froze to death on the field back in Poland. When he was freed from the concentration camp, he came to the Netherlands to work in the coal mines and married here. It was an open secret that he had eaten human meat, but we all understood. I'd just wish he could've eaten tulip bulbs instead.

[@rinber13]

What a tragic story. Nobody should have to suffer like that.

[@Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger]

Not to diminish his experience, but its often the last taboo to overcome in dire circumstances - and we as a species have done it many times over the course of history. He did what he had to to survive; though it's horrific to someone who's never been there, he chose to live and was likely very thankful that his brother could give him that gift in such a dire place. He has nothing to be ashamed of

[@therewillbecatswithgwenhwyfar]

All empathy. No shame. ❤

[@cpeace3172]

Wow. I appreciate that you could share such an intense story about your family. ❤

[@hi_im_angie]

The thought crossed my mind while watching the video that surely there were some who had to resort to such measures to stay alive. Maybe it's weird to say, but I'd be honored if my body was used to nourish my family if they had no other choice.

[@jiriwichern]

Usually when I make stamppot it's half potatoes, half vegetables. I'm a bit old-fashioned in that I do leave the potato skins on for additional flavor... at least when they are reasonably fresh. I do peel older potatoes. Stamppotten are available in a wide variety, varying the type of vegetables and additions to the mashed potatoes, many of which are still considered traditional. But in basics it's mashed potatoes, a vegetable or certain combinations of, and a select group of flavor enhancers. To make a better tasting stamppot you can add milk and/or butter to the potatoes while mashing, some salt, pepper or even use a soup stock cube and of course there is the jus (a sauce made from the baking liquids of whatever meats you usually serve with the stamppot), served separately. Some stamppotten (especially for endive) can also include thoroughly baked bacon bits for added taste. Popular Dutch choices of vegetables or combinations for stamppot are: carrots and onions (called hutspot), sauerkraut, kale/cabbage (many variants are used), chopped up string beans, endive (usually cut in strips and put in raw after mashing the potatoes, then warmed a little more and add those bacon bits, please), red beets (you can add some apple or onion to that) and apples and onions (called hete bliksem). Stamppot can be served traditionally with various prepared Dutch style meats like gehaktbal (baked meat balls, usually beef), pork chops, 'fresh' (beef/pork) baked sausage or smoked (beef/pork) sausage and there are, depending on the stamppot, typical side dishes like the aforementioned jus, (amsterdamse) uitjes (pickled mini onions) and augurken (pickled mini cucumbers). I very much like stamppot ;)

[@polarbearsaysyummy5845]

augurken sounds wonderful. I could probably grow mini cucumbers in my little efficiency apartment. My Grandmother made the best pickled green beans. Bet you would like them. Anyway both sound delicious together.

[@lilianneweinhandl8493]

I'm happy that my Dutch grandparents were living in a small town in Friesland during the war, some ingredients were hard or impossible to get during the hunger winter but they never had to eat tulip bulbs to have something to eat. People even send their kids to that province to have fewer mouths to feed in the cities and to give their kids a better chance of surviving the winter.

[@mrsjprich]

I was glad you mentioned Audrey Hepburn. It is well known that she and her family had to eat Tulip bulbs during the war, and the lasting effects the starvation had on her body. I appreciate learning how the bulbs were used in cooking. I always had an image of the bulbs being eaten like a piece of fruit. This is one of my favorite episodes.

[@ShopKatIndustries]

My Oma & Opa were both children in the Netherlands during the war. My Opa only spoke of seeing the Allied warplanes flying over during the Liberation, and that no matter which way they tried, they just couldn't find a way to make tulip bulbs taste good. My Oma's father was away at sea with the Merchant Marine when Germany invaded, so he couldn't come back. Her mother worked at a fish canning factory and would sneak fish home in her dress. My Oma was 6 years old and would steal bread from the Nazi soldiers. I can't imagine life like that, and I'm very grateful for their resilience.

[@MarkAntony_1]

Stop calling it Oma and Opa its called grandmother and grandfather, its cringe!

[@ShopKatIndustries]

@MarkAntony_1 your lack of cultural education is cringe. They were Dutch, I'm Dutch-Canadian, and if you can't respect that you can go pound sand. They were better humans than you could ever hope to be. I had a Grandma & Grandpa on my mother's side.

[@HeliosAsteri]

@MarkAntony_1 do you know that there are different languages then english?

[@LalaDepala_00]

​@MarkAntony_1Entire countries say opa and oma.

[@MarkAntony_1]

@@HeliosAsteri I know that, but when you write the rest of your comment in english, use english words, its cringey as hellto see some (supposedly) american or otherwise english speaker use "oma" and "opa"

[@mikkol3]

Thanks for the detailed and accurate report! My grandmother (89 years old) lost 2 siblings during this winter and endured a lot of tulip bulbs, being from a poorer neigborhood in a big city at the time. After the war, her and her sisters would be send all over Europe to get well fed and strengthen for a couple months, she went to denmark by cattle truck. Also the danish bread was unique, the Netherlands commonly had brown bread so to receive the danish WHITE bread was really something special not seen by many people before. My grandmother also told stories about neighbors walking day and night with a wheelbarrow to the eastern part of the netherlands to collect food from the farmers there. By the time they almost made it back after the long journey, this food would sometimes be confiscated by the germans, which would be terrible after such an effort

[@joantrotter3005]

We had friends in Seattle that had been children during this time in the Netherlands. She also talked about boiling the wallpaper for flour. But they had the best prayers before potluck dinners! I wish I had been older and asked more questions though.

[@leenwitvliet8126]

What a great episode. It brought up quite some emotions forme. I am Dutch and in my childhood quite a lot was taught at school about the Netherlands in WW2. Both my parents where teenagers in WW2 and spoke quite a bit about WW2 ( I still have some ration cards and also an identity document the Germans forced on even quite young people). My father spoke about executions he had seen on the town square and my mother mentioned searching railway tracks for half burnt coal etc. The actual tulip recipe is new to me though! Interesting is that as a result of a low milk and protein diet during and shortly after WW2 a lot of young people ended up losing their teeth early on in life. The other thing that happened is a lot of parents after WW2 ended up providing extra good quality food to their children. As a result the Dutch ended up the tallest people on the planet. Love the channel!!!

[@pollywaffledoodah3057]

I'm glad so many people loved the story about the white rocks and the orphanage! I forgot to include a couple of details that my old friend, Jakob, told me. He said that it took them ages to lay down all the white rocks in the shape of letters, because they were all so weak with hunger. He also said that all the kids were amazed to see all the nuns and the priest getting whitewash all over their robes, as they helped the kids to paint the rocks, and to lay them down on the road. This was a bit shocking to the kids, because the Dutch nuns had always been very strict about being clean and tidy - it is a very Dutch thing to take pride in! They had never seen the nuns and the priest laughing and smiling so much as on that day - all during the stressful years of the war, he said the grown-ups had always looked so serious, and worried all the time - and now they were laughing? The kids couldn't understand why. They heard the American planes, before they could see them - and they sounded like roaring thunder on the horizon. The kids were suddenly frightened, thinking a big storm was coming, so Jakob tried to run inside with the other kids. But the priest stopped them, and calmed them down, saying 'That's not a thunder storm, children! That's our American friends on their way to us!' Jakob asked him - 'Are they nice, Father, these Americans?' 'Are the Americans nice?' laughed the priest, 'Oh Jakob! Just you wait and see!'

[@RHTQ1]

Wow does this make my heart warm.

[@kristina72283]

My Oma lived in Holland as a child during WWII and told me stories of eating tulip bulbs and of the hardships her family went through during the Nazi occupation. Thank you for sharing this recipe and this series on what life was like at home for people all over during WWII.

[@jelle_smid]

My grandmother used to tell me about the mothers and children that walked from Amsterdam to our town in Friesland (about 200mile round trip) just for a basket of potatoes. The northern part of the netherlands had a lot of agriculture and had a bit more than most. But when the swedish bread came she always told the story with such a shining light in her eyes... it was the best she ever tasted she said. After she passed away we cleared her house and upstairs we found stashes of ground coffee, tea, soap bars and matches. All the things they lacked in the war.... she became a prepper avant la lettre 😄

[@simonh6371]

I think most people were preppers before it became a term. It's only the boomers, those born after WW2 who didn't. For example my parents, born after 1950, used to joke about how our grandparents had cupboards upstairs filled with canned food, especially corned beef, saying they think there will be another war. But they'd been through the 30s depression as well as WW2 so knew what it was like to be short on food. Before that in the countryside especially there was no refrigeration, freezers or supermarkets so people certainly had to ensure they had enough stocked up to get through the winter.

[@heatherhoward2513]

Also burnt for fuel, were the woodenblocks from the tramlines in the Hague. My dutch friend, born1938, always stuffed his cupboards with food.

[@RobDutchie]

Hi Max , a Dutch guy here. I still put everything together in one pot. A lot of people do. Nice to see interest in our history from far away👍

[@roeliethegoat]

My grandma walked 'hungerwalks' almost every week, where she would walk for miles with an empty stroller to collect food at a farm to feed her family. While being hungry and cold herself. She was one of many. It were difficult times.