I’ve managed to work right through lunch today without noticing, and the cafeteria here is closed. There is a coffee bar in the building that offers various healthy snacks – light cold sandwiches, fruit, yogurt, et cetera – so I can get some food, thankfully.
However, I was confronted today by a “filet american” sandwich. Reading through the ingredients list (conveniently available in Dutch and French), it looks like it contained beef, ketchup, salsa, and some other things. However, looking at it, I have precisely zero clue as to what is in an American filet sandwich.
I feel some sort of ownership of this, being American and all. Any ideas? Has anybody else come across this?
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What about the ketchup? Is that a big condiment over there?
If they have coffee, what need food?
It’s what the Dutch (and the Belgians, French and Swiss) call Steak Tartare. Remember, Wikipedia is your friend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filet_americain
Has there been a rash of American tourists going missing near take-away shops lately? Check with the local hostels…
And don’t even ask where the ‘Angus’ part of the American is.
(Salsa AND ketchup?)
I spent a year studying abroad in France where I saw a number of strange sandwiches labeled as ‘American’ that would contain very un-American ingredients. I suppose the one that was filled with French fries could almost count (forgetting their Belgian roots), but it all certainly made for good fodder among the Americans abroad, thinking about how many ‘French’ or ‘Italian’ things we have in our diet that baffle inhabitants of those countries.