This occurred at a luxury lunch during a fancy business event held in some glamorous lounge in a famous soccer stadium in Eindhoven. It was some years ago, but the availability of water at a regular Dutch lunch has not improved much over the years, as I have recently experienced at various occasions. The Dutch certainly have a strong bond with milk and all kinds of dairy products. It is supposed to be healthy, there is massive production with all the cows around, but it is also cultural as a sign of a certain frugality to drink it while eating broodjes and the like. It fits the general picture of not-making-much-out-of-your-lunch, as was demonstrated by my colleague Willem in a recent workshop for Cosmos.

On a similar note, many of you may still remember the popular advertisement some years ago, promoting drinking milk as an energizer with the slogan ‘Melk de witte motor!’. My guess is that this commercial was aimed at adult consumers (and not just young kids and their parents), which makes it quite unique from a global perspective. Statistically, the Netherlands is in the top 3 behind Finland and Sweden concerning global milk consumption.

By contrast, many people in the world, next to the lactose intolerant, consider milk as something for babies only. As a Frenchman, I was indeed about 2 when I told my mom I didn’t like milk anymore and she approvingly replied it was fine. Consequently, when at a recent lunch I insidiously asked other participants what they thought I was missing in the pallet of drinks offered (as mentioned above), they all thought I was pointing out the absence of… wine! On the contrary (wine and broodjes don’t really match…), it was just water I was missing! A basic element of life.