Here’s something new that any of you who might be headed to Amsterdam will want to know about! It comes originally from the website of the local radio station AmsterdamFM.nl. The news is that, as of TODAY, one of the premier French fry (friets) stands in Amsterdam, Manneken Pis, has a new sauce flavor available – in the words of owner Albert van Beek, a “new tasty sauce with the unmistakable taste of marijuana” – wiet in Dutch (one way to say it).

More good news: it’s hard to miss Manneken Pis in Amsterdam, as it is right on the Damrak (which is that big street that all the trams run down, initially with the water off to the left side, as you leave Central Station), really the very first French fry stand you will encounter as you head into town towards the Dam. Just look for the “Teasers Cafe,” with the shapely waitresses in their skimpy costumes – it’s right past that. Something to keep in mind upon your arrival, if you’re eager to try this stuff out (I’m still referring here to the wietsaus, not Teasers).

Oh, and Manneken Pis also has three stands in Utrecht – yes, they also offer this special sauce, check their webpage in the unlikely event that you’ll be in Utrecht before you find yourself in Amsterdam. (That’s not the way to proceed, folks.)

But what is it like? I now yield the floor to the 24 Oranges blog, which is where I first found out about this: “. . . it is not the easiest thing to cook with or digest for that matter. Yes, it can provide a very decent, slow buzz, thanks for asking.”

If you’re curious, EuroSavant has never smoked the stuff, does not intend to – doesn’t care whether you believe him or not! – and doesn’t even intend to try out this new wiet-sauce, but mainly because he excised French fries from his diet long ago, one gets to an age where they’re just not very healthy anymore. Then again, he often patronized Manneken Pis back when he did indulge, and understands that they regularly win national awards for the quality of their fries.

UPDATE: A confession: In the back of my mind there was always the niggling question, “Is this some kind of fraud, a set-up?” And I admit that I published first, then asked questions later, but would plead that little more can be expected in the 21st century on-line media environment.

But OK, I had the chance today (FRI. 12 APR) to go by Manneken Pis. It’s right there at the bottom of their sauces-list, in big letters: “WEEDSAUCE.” In a spirit of truth-in-advertising they add right underneath that: “Zonder THC/Without THC,” which we are all aware is marijuana’s active narcotic ingredient, and that can make you wonder whether it really can have the effect that 24 Oranges claims that it has.

Or maybe At the Toke of Midnight, anyone? As reported initially in the Flemish newspaper De Morgen, some South African researchers think they might have found a clue to one source of William Shakespeare’s inspiration, and it ain’t the evening sun descending on the Avon river: Scientists want to demonstrate that Shakespeare smoked grass.

That’s wiet in Dutch: grass, man, that Mary-Jane stuff. Oh, and cocaine as well. The evidence so far is a number of pipes found buried in 2001 in the garden of Shakespeare’s Stratford-on-Avon residence, which even after around four centuries still showed traces of both narcotics, and even a couple others. (“The results were in keeping with that of a modern crack-pipe,” was the rather cruel remark of one of the investigators.)

Now this research team from the underside of the Dark Continent has petitioned the Anglican Church for permission to get into the Bard’s grave, despite his clear instructions that that should never happen. (“[C]ursed be he who moves my bones” is part of his self-chosen gravestone epitaph.) But wait, they say, we don’t have to move anything! We just want to check a tooth – just one! – to look for any grooves that would indicate that he actually stuck those pipes in his mouth.

Besides, it’s right there in his Sonnet 76, line 6: “And keep invention in a noted weed.” So is that the smoking gun (so to speak)? Doubtful; other Shakespearean scholars think that a reference to clothes instead, e.g. “in a noted garb.” Click through to the article itself if you’d like a reminder (in English) of what that Sonnet is about, and a chance to judge for yourself.

For too many people – for far, far too many, in fact, but not for any of you readers of this weblog, I would wager – the only fact filed in their brains under “Netherlands” or “Holland” is “it’s that place where you can go smoke weed and it’s legal, man!” And that’s true: you can smoke weed here, and it’s legal, as long as you follow some trifling rules regarding time and place.

But Dutch culture also stems from a rather Calvinist historical background (think “Thou Shalt Not!”), which cannot but give rise to various paradoxes – if you’d rather not call them “hypocrisies” – such as that, while it’s legal to buy hash and marijuana in small amounts, it’s strictly-speaking illegal to supply the stuff in any commercially-meaningful amounts. And the public authorities take a particularly dim view of marijuana “farms” or “plantations.”

Combine all that with Dutch technical ingenuity, and what you can come up with as a result is what (fittingly) the Dutch religious newspaper Nederlands Dagblad is now reporting: Unmanned helicopter tracks down marijuana-cultivation. (more…)

Hi! I’m back, and I’m enjoying Labor Day (a public holiday) here in the USA. Don’t go accusing me of “holiday arbitrage” – i.e. of heading to the States to celebrate their version of labor’s holiday after having first celebrated Europe’s version. You see, 1 May is not really a holiday in the Netherlands, not because of any less dedication on the part of the Dutch to the working man (indeed, one of the major political parties is the Partij van de Arbeid, or “Party of Work”) but because of the previous day, 30 April, which is a major holiday in Holland, namely the Queen’s birthday.

Still, there’s always time for a homesick glance back to the country of residence even from across the ocean, via the Internet, naturally. And today, 1 September, is itself a date of some note, at least according to the NRC Handelsblad: From today, in the Netherlands marijuana can be legally purchased by prescription for medicinal purposes. (more…)