Dear reader,
If you haven’t visited the Netherlands, most likely you’ve never seen an automat, except perhaps in an old movie.
Automats are a sort of restaurant, except with a big wall of little windows, with an item of food behind each one. It’s essentially a very large vending machine, and dropping a coin in allows customers to open the chosen window and take the food.
Seen as efficient and futuristic, automats were quite popular in the US in the first half of the 20th century, but were eventually replaced by other types of fast food service: fast-food restaurants, drive-throughs, and so on.
In the Netherlands, though, automats are still going strong. One of the biggest company is called Febo, which has a presence in 37 Dutch cities. It didn’t even start with automats until 1960 and opened its first franchise in 1968. Another big one, called Big Snack, is even newer, but has automat franchises in 58 Dutch towns.
Dutch snack food
While in the US the selection in a typical automat included things like slices of pie or servings of macaroni and cheese, to be eaten at tables on the premises, the automats in the Netherlands serve food meant to be carried and eaten, and it’s a uniquely Dutch assortment.
Febo’s first product was kroket or croquettes, which they made by hand in the 1960s. Nowadays Febo has its own factory but claims it still uses the original family recipe. A kroket is a meat ragout – often beef or veal – that is chilled so that it can be formed into a thick cylindrical shape, then breaded and deep-fried, making it crispy outside, soft and savory inside. It’s served as-is or in a white-bread bun.
A frikandel is another traditional snack food that you’ll find in an automat. This is a skinless sausage, longer and thinner than a hot dog, that is cooked by deep-frying. Usually it’s made of meat byproducts from chicken or pork, though it might also contain horsemeat.
You can see a common theme already: mystery meat inside and deep-fat frying. To be fair, the meat is less of a mystery than it used to be. Nowadays you can choose a chicken croquette or veal croquette, for example.
Other fried possibilities:
A chicken burger where the patty is breaded and deep-fried.
A kaassouffle, which is cheese in a filo dough jacket, also deep-fried, I think. Often served in a white bread roll.
Bitterballen, essentially the same thing as croquettes, but in a smaller round shape. These are common snacks at cocktail parties as well, served with mustard.
An eierbal is a local specialty invented here in Groningen: a hard-boiled egg, wrapped in ragout, breaded and deep-fried.
Not surprisingly, these automats often also offer French fries, though those are generally made to order rather than placed in the automats. The storefronts I’m aware of generally have a take-out counter as well as the wall of machines.
Fortunately for those of us put off by deep-fat frying, they do offer a few other options. They have plain old hamburgers and cheeseburgers these days, but they’re sometimes deep-fat fried too, though they might be grilled. Generally they’re hard and dense and chewy, . I don’t recommend them. They might sell both fried and roasted chicken as well as chicken sate. Ice cream is also a common item.
Comfort food
So why are these automats still popular?
I would guess that the vast majority of customers are young: teenagers or young adults. They want something very fast and very cheap, and they want as little human contact as possible in the process. Febo’s automats are open until 1 or 2 in the morning, so these snacks are perfect for people who are high or drunk and passing by on the street. That’s why the franchises are generally located on high-traffic corners; they get those spur-of-the-moment impulse buyers.
I suppose too that there’s a certain comfort food element to the food in automats, at least to people who grew up here. It’s the same food available at a typical snack bar, the kind of junky food that children see as a big treat.
For me, the equivalent from my upbringing would be, for example, a donut from Dunkin’ Donuts or a milk shake (the kind mixed in a big metal cup) from an old-fashioned diner, or a meal of Kraft macaroni and cheese (the kind with the cheese, not the powder). These bring back a feeling of it being a special event, even if, objectively speaking, it’s not actually very good food.
As for the automats here in Holland, I’ve never actually used one. If I really want deep-fried food, I’d much rather get French fries with mayo at the local Belgian fries stand. (Mayonnaise is the accepted condiment for fries here.)
Have you ever eaten from an automat? What qualifies as comfort food for you? Hit reply to reach me directly, or add a comment below!
Met vriendelijke groeten (with friendly greetings),
Rachel