Try these traditional Dutch dishes at Salt Lake’s first King’s Day party

A tompouce — the Dutch version of a napoleon — isn’t a tompouce without pink icing. Unless it’s April 27.

That’s Koningsdag, the Netherlands’ national holiday, celebrated on King Willem-Alexander’s birthday. On King’s Day in Holland, you’ll see orange everywhere, including the icing on the tompouces. There’s even a word for it: oranjegekte, or “orange madness.”

“The Dutch bleed orange,” said Katie Reid, in-house chef at The Old Dutch Store, which is owned by her mother, Sharon Van Schelt Wuolukka. For puzzled Americans who know the Dutch flag is red, white and blue: it’s the color associated with the Dutch royal family, now called the House of Orange-Nassau.

Reid is helping to organize Salt Lake’s first King’s Day — held on Saturday, April 23, since it’s not a national holiday in the United States. While it will be a much more modest affair than the all-day street party in Amsterdam, it will be a great opportunity for Utahns to sample authentic Dutch food.

Peter Van Schelt, Reid’s grandfather, worked for Adriaan and Elsje Groos, who opened The Old Dutch Store in 1978. When the couple sold the store — at 2696 S. Highland Drive in Salt Lake City, known for its landmark windmill — to Reid’s parents in 2003, she apprenticed under her grandfather, learning how to make traditional Dutch dishes, including sausages.

“My mom’s parents immigrated [from Holland] separately, and met in Salt Lake City,” Reid said. “My grandfather worked at Siegfried’s and Miller Meats, and came in temporarily to set up the deli, and work as a sausage-maker. He ended up staying part-time.”

Most of the recipes are now Reid’s own, or her adaptations, with the exception of her grandfather’s bratwurst and weisswurst. Reid’s speciality is lekker beef kroketten, a thick meat gravy rolled into a log with breadcrumbs and then deep-fried.

“In the Netherlands, they even sell them at McDonald’s, they’re so popular,” she said. “The original owner had a recipe, and she used to limit people to four at a time, because it’s a three-day process. I have limited people to six at a time, unless they pre-order. I doubled the amount of meat she put in, and she used the premixed spice, but you can’t get it anymore, so I make my own spice mix. It’s coriander, curry, beef bouillon, salt and pepper, and onion.”

On Wednesday, Reid makes stroopwafels from scratch. “It’s a Dutch cookie that’s becoming more popular, but they’re best if you have them hot off the grill,” Reid said. “We only do it Wednesday because our machine is kind of finicky.”

Reid’s relationship with her grandfather, learning traditional recipes, gave her a strong connection to Dutch culture. She said that in the ‘60s and ‘70s, those kinds of traditions would be shared through Dutch clubs, but Salt Lake’s chapter folded when the first generation immigrants passed away.

“For years, I’d hear from customers how cozy their Christmas parties were, and how new people who immigrated would come in and say, ‘Where’s the Dutch Club, there’s no Dutch club here?’ No one wanted to get it going,” she said. “I wasn’t born there, but I have Dutch roots, and there’s a demand for it.”

When Reid re-started the Dutch Social Club, it attracted many of the children and grandchildren of the original members, as well as missionaries and younger Dutch people who are working or going to school here. The club is helping organize King’s Day.

Reid said this year’s festival is very food-focused. There will be fresh kroketten and stroopwafels, as well as marzipan cake (another regular Old Dutch Store offering, even though it’s more of a Scandinavian dessert). It will also sell imported foods like hagelslag. (“It’s like Nutella, but sprinkles instead, and not so overwhelmingly rich.”)

There will be several food trucks, including Gourmandise, which will sell tompouces, and a beer garden where you can tip back Dutch beers. The Old Dutch Store will have an info booth where you can talk to native Dutch speakers and get more information about the country, and another with “fun orange stuff for sale.”

The festival starts at 11 a.m. with a fietstocht, an all-ages bike ride (decorating your bike with orange is encouraged). The Dutch consolate will be there, and so will Marc Van Brabant, a Dutch DJ based in the Bay Area. Brabant founded San Francisco’s King Day event 15 years ago — when it was Queen’s Day, before Beatrix stepped down from the throne in 2013.

“He starts his program with the classical things that the old folks will like, and then as the day progresses, it’s more like party tunes and house music,” Reid said.

Held in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco’s Kings Day now attracts thousands of people, and includes a bike ride as well as a vrijmarkt, or free market, where people swap clothes, toys and other other goods. It’s a traditional part of the event in Holland, and one Reid would eventually like to include in the Salt Lake festival.

New York, Los Angeles and Dallas also have sizable Kings Day celebrations, too, and Reid would love to see Utah’s grow. For now, she’s focused on prepping many, many kroketten — and encouraging anyone who attends to remember to wear orange.

King’s Day, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday, April 23, The Gateway, 18 N. Rio Grande Street. Free, though the bike ride requires pre-registration and a small fee. Find updates on the Old Dutch Store’s website, Instagram and Facebook pages.

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