The Soft Protest Digest is a research collective associating Danish farmer and artist Nickie Sigurdsson with Adel Cersaque.

Between the 19th and 20th of October 2018, The Soft Protest Digest held the first gathering of the “Nederland edition” at fanfare, in Amsterdam. This event, titled “Waarom beginnen met stamppot?” or “Why begin with stamppot?”, consisted of two consecutive days of cooking, learning and tasting:

On the first day, 7 dutch North Holland residents (from age 23 to over 60) were invited to teach The Soft Protest Digest how to cook the famous dutch ‘Stamppot’ (a combination of mashed potatoes and various kinds of vegetables, often served with a smoked sausage or meatball). Using a family secret, a classic or even a TV inspired recipe, these knowledgeable dutchs’ taught the collective how to properly prepare their version of the renowned dish as well as discussing their feelings towards it, the dutch food culture and the dutch relationship to cooking and agriculture as a whole. These conversations were archived and the stamppots stored in air-thighed containers until the next day.

On the second and last day, a crowd of Amsterdam residents (from age 23 to well over 70), as well as the Stamppot teachers, were invited to share a dinner in the fanfare space. This event was put together as a thank you to the participants, as well as an introduction to the research of the Nederland edition of The Soft Protest Digest.

Produced with carefully sourced products from farms of the Amsterdam area, 3 courses were served (for description head to our Instagram):

Starter: “Ecology of the dutch (+) Rhizosphere”
…This dish aimed to magnify the micro-levels at play in food production and be an ode to bacterial life in the rhizosphere (the area directly influenced by roots and microorganisms in the soil)

Main: “Stamppot pies”
…As a way to make use of the vegetarian stamppots produced the day before, these pies were thought as casings which could allow the potato mashes to be eaten on the go. Designed to be teared in two and shared, these stamppot pies could then spread the resilient word.

Dessert: “Sneeuw eieren” or “Snow eggs”
…The french “crème anglaise” or custard followed the same exact path than the dutch “Vla” throughout history. May those two recipes have, nowadays, shaped into two very different dishes, this dessert was meant to narrate what impact can politics and culture have on a dish.

Each course was introduced with a consistent talk on various topics such as: ♦ The relevance of eating self resilient plants and cereals on the dutch soil ♦ The convenience of foraging wild plants in forests and nearby parks ♦ The history of mashed vegetables in the Netherlands ♦ The development of meat-free traditional dishes ♦ The value of vegetarian meat substitutes

This dinner scenario fostered many lively talks and helped the collective make clearer sense of its (at first glance at least) overwhelming enterprise: designing an environmentally and culturally resilient diet for the North Holland dutchs’.