#38 Come Visit the Rotterdam Market Hall with Me 🧀 🥘 🌽 🇳🇱 全球颜...

So yesterday we had a look at the curious Cube Houses in central Rotterdam. As I promised, I’m going to show you today the marvelous Market Hall next to it. Let’s start from the horseshoe-like building:

昨天带大家看了看鹿特丹市中心的立体魔方屋，今天我们再一起移步附近的拱廊大市场，这个号称全球颜值最高的菜市场。先上张入口的照片：

This archy building is about 40 meters tall, and has a glass facade on both sides, which are made up of smaller glass windows. Housing also apartments and an underground garage in the complex, it is a combination of food, leisure, living and parking. The inside of the building is adorned with an 11.000 m2 artwork displaying enlarged fruits, vegetables, fish, flowers and insects. The work was made using digital 3D-animation that was separated in 4000 pieces and then printed on perforated aluminum panels. Some call this large artwork "The Sistine Chapel of Rotterdam".

Where the Market Hall was built is also an archaeological site. The site used to be a fourteenth-century buried settlement in a polder. The Dutch word "polder" is frequently associated with the Netherlands, since about half of the country's land was reclaimed from the sea. Dutch engineers have been developing techniques to drain wetlands for agriculture and other development. There's even an English saying: "God created the world, but the Dutch created the Netherlands". =) Later during the building of the Market Hall, a tenth-century farm was also found 7 meters under the ground.

这个巨型拱廊高约40米，表面的灰色石块上镶嵌着大量小块玻璃窗。除了中间的菜市场，两边和顶部建有公寓，地下还有个四层的停车场，可停1200多辆车。建筑内部的装饰画面积达11000平米，布满了放大的水果蔬菜、花鸟虫鱼等图案。这副巨作是由4000块立体动画拼成，然后打印在镂空的铝制板材上，有些人称这块大壁画为“鹿特丹的西斯廷教堂（因为西斯廷教堂的穹顶上有米开朗基罗绘制的巨型壁画《创世纪》和《最后的审判》）”。

这间巨大的菜市场里有近100间食品摊位，蔬果，禽肉，海鲜，香料，奶酪，甜点，干货，鲜花，厨具等一应俱全，还有十几家世界各地风味的餐饮店，食客也可以到上层露台休闲小憩。虽说餐馆的数量跟亚洲常见的美食街肯定是没法比，但在西方也算是吃货福利了。我来了碗越南风味的沙拉，跟在越南本土吃到的味道还挺接近的。市场里还有家中国超市和荷兰的本土超市Albert Heijn, 这间连锁超市售卖很多来自世界各地的新鲜蔬果，尤其是小青菜，香菇之类的亚洲品种，平时很难在一般比利时超市找到。由于Albert Heijn比亚超要普遍得多，所以我住在比利时的时候常常去这家荷兰超市扫货，呵呵，又是沾荷兰的光。

建造大市场的地址原是一处圩田，这里在十四世纪时曾是个小村落，在建过程中，又发现地下7米处有个十世纪的农场（可怜的荷兰人，寸土寸金啊，小小的国土到处都要物尽其用）。“圩田”这个词来自荷兰语，这也是勤劳智慧的荷兰人民千百年来填海造田的辛酸血泪史（可能我有点夸张了，说不定他们乐在其中呢 ;p 哈哈）。整个国家大约一半的土地都是朝大海要来的。英语里甚至有个说法：“世界是上帝创造的，荷兰却是荷兰人创造的”。:D

Do you like the name of this butcher shop? Nice to meat~ Haha, isn't it sweet? Not for vegetarians perhaps. And that national cow with tulips and a flag of the Netherlands. Hmm, this is a genuine Dutch shop... ;)

下面这个肉店的名字是不是挺有创意的？可能素食主义者并没觉得有多nice吧，呵呵，反正我这个肉食动物觉得Nice to Meat的名字起得还不错。名字旁边还有头著名的荷兰乳牛，作为从小喝着这奶粉长大的我，对它真是充满感激。 :D 牛身上还有荷兰的象征郁金香和国旗，真是家充满荷兰风情的小肉店呀。

Talking about Dutch produce, there's no way to get around these guys in the photo below. ;) Dutch cheese is renowned around the world for its excellent quality and wide varieties. The Netherlands is also the number one cheese exporting nation. Cheese making in this flat region(great for pasture lands) dates back over 1600 years.

Among all the cheeses produced in the Netherlands, Gouda is one that accounts for around half of the total production. As you can see from the first photo in this post, the one wrapped in red package is Baby Gouda. From the city Gouda, this semi-hard cheese is one of the oldest types which is still in production. Some Gouda can be aged for over a year to develop its flavor. I personally prefer the cubes of matured Gouda, which in the Netherlands are often eaten with Dutch mustard as a snack. Young Gouda cheese is commonly seen in use with sandwiches.

Other popular cheeses from the country are: Edam(often eaten as a snacking cheese in combination with fruit), Maasdam(a Swiss-style cheese with distinctive holes, introduced in the 1980s to compete with Swiss Emmental), Leidse(contain cumin seeds), Limburger(similar texture to Greek Feta, pungent smell)...

I'd love to tell you more about cheese in a future post, when I share with you my experience of visiting a cheese factory in Delft. :D

谈到荷兰的特产，不能不提奶酪。荷兰奶酪以质量高种类多而著称，是世界头号奶酪出口国(法国，美国等西方国家也大量生产奶酪，但大多内销)。在这块牧场众多的低地，奶酪制作已经有1600多年的历史了。

在荷兰产的各种奶酪当中，高德干酪的产量占到了大约一半。我发的第一张照片里，中间红色的包装就是高德干酪。这种软硬适中的奶酪产自高德市，有着悠久的历史。有些高德奶酪需要熟化一年多来增强风味。我个人比较喜欢成熟的高德干酪块，荷兰人常用这种块状干酪蘸着芥末当零食吃。

还有几种常见的荷兰奶酪有：大红波奶酪（有红色蜡封，正球形，一般和水果一起当零食吃），马士丹奶酪（有孔的瑞士型奶酪，上世纪80年代为了和瑞士的大孔奶酪一拼高下而推出）, 小茴香奶酪（含有小茴香种子）, 林堡奶酪（质感类似希腊的菲达羊奶酪，气味强烈）。

更多关于奶酪的分享，请关注我将来关于参观代尔夫特奶酪工厂的帖子。=)

Nuts and dried fruits, often said to offer great health benefits:
各种果仁和干果，据说营养价值很高：

Spices:
香料：

Opening a coconut for me: (I will write a post about different tools used around the world to open a coconut, will you be interested? :)
等他为我打开椰子：（我会写篇文讲讲世界各地看到的椰子的不同打开方式，希望你们会有兴趣？ ;D）

See these horned melons in the photo below? I didn't try them that day in the market but later in South America, they are pretty common in the Southern Hemisphere, and are called Inca Gold in some places in Peru and Chile. When I was researching online the origin of this fruit, I came across this, lol:

The kiwano may look like a fruit from outer space (and in fact, it featured in an episode of Star Trek), but it's a very popular snack in Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of the U.S.

from "What the Heck is a Kiwano Melon and How Do You Eat It?"
by Lindsay Lowe

下面这种金黄色的奇特水果叫刺角瓜，我那天在这个市场没有尝试，后来在南美吃过不少。在秘鲁，智利的一些地方，这种瓜被叫做“印加黄金果”。我在网上查找这种水果起源的时候，偶然看到下面这段话，哈哈：

这种水果看起来就像外太空来的怪胎，而它确实也在《星际迷航》的某一集中出过镜。其实它在非洲，澳大利亚，新西兰和美国的一些地区还是种挺受欢迎的零食呢。

来自林赛•洛维的网文“刺角瓜到底是什么玩意儿，应该怎么吃”

Combo of fresh berries:
草莓桑果覆盆子：

Super papaya:
超级大木瓜：

Mickey Mouse fruits coated in chocolate:
米老鼠巧克力水果：

Spanish ham and wine, also pinchos(small snacks, oh I should write a post about my trip in northern Spain where there is full of pinchos):
西班牙火腿，美酒和小菜（我得写篇关于西班牙北部这种著名小菜的文章）：