Amsterdam kitchens are tiny, partly because most Dutch food is made on the floor, using an axe, a cudgel and a spade, which is used to scoop the meal into the pan. The work surfaces are just big enough for two drinks, a bowl of peanuts and the New Testament.

Restricted space also makes it easier to corner rats, mice and other edible vermin, which are skewered on sticks and roasted over an open fire, after which they are covered with a peanut-butter sauce we claim originated in the former Dutch colonies, but they have repeatedly denied any involvement.

Despite being one of the tallest nations on earth, the Dutch are terribly insecure when it comes to cooking, which is why one of our favourite festive pastimes involves the use of tiny cooking utensils that make us feel like culinary giants. This tradition is laughably known as "gourmetten".

The term "salary" originates from the fact that soldiers were paid in salt, which was once a more valuable commodity. The clever Dutch realised that bags of salt were weighing their soldiers down, so they mixed it into small coin-shaped sweets that soldiers could eat, instead of carrying it around.

The Dutch began eating "kale" because nothing else would grow in our godforsaken polders. But we don't call it "kale", we call it "kool", which is kooler than cool. We mix it with mashed potatoes, otherwise it tastes like plant-shaped fart, and we eat it with sausage made of smoked skaters.