Speculoos Smuggler

Speculoos Smuggler

I am a speculoos addict. I have been hopelessly hooked on its sweet delicious taste ever since I tried my first sample. Since that day I have tried all different kinds of speculoos products; sandwich spreads, ice-creams, biscuits, hagelslag. The list goes on and on. Neither rehab or any amount of interventions have done anything to reduce my insanely uncontrollable cravings.

So when I learnt about the existence of a new speculoos product I knew I had to have it. There was only one problem. It was only available in Belgium. What could I do? The answer was simple. I was going to Belgium to get some chocolate speculoos.

Luckily two of my friends were also very interested in the idea of a daytrip to Belgium (one of them suggested it). This was good because I knew a group travelling together would arouse much less suspicion than a man travelling alone.

Getting into Belgium was the easy part. We boarded a train and entered the country un-noticed. Once there we took photos, made comments about the architecture, visited bars and did all the other things ‘innocent’ tourists usually do while all the time I could think of nothing else but chocolate speculoos.

Just when I thought I could not control my addiction any longer and was about to ask a local drug dealer if they sold speculoos we found it. The stuff was being sold in shops every where… in broad daylight. I could not believe my luck I bought as much of the stuff as I could (two bars).

It was only on the return journey that I started to worry. I suddenly realized I was smuggling chocolate speculoos across the border from Belgium to Holland. What if we were stopped? What if we were searched? Two bars is a lot for one person. Could I be arrested with intent to distribute? What if there were sniffer dogs?

I was suddenly snapped out of my internal panic by a ticket inspector asking to see our tickets. I almost gave him a full confession in a blind panic.

As it turns out (despite its highly addictive nature) chocolate speculoos is not illegal and I was allowed to keep my supplies and return home.

It was all gone within two days. Anyone want to go to Belgium?

Speculoos Smuggler

Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

22 Responses

  1. Citizen Stu says:

    Heather – Argh! Are you trying to kill me? :p

  2. friendly_stranger says:

    Hi,

    have you tried these:

    http://www.chockies.net/NESTLE-GALAK-white-chocolate-with-speculoos-bits-250g
    http://www.chockies.net/Nestle-spreadable-Galak-Speculoos

    I’m impressed that you’ve been eating speculoos for 2 years and still like it! :o

    I ate too much of it and now I can’t eat it anymore :( I discovered speculoos when it was still only available in Belgium. My girlfriend at that time was studying in Antwerp (I lived in Eindhoven) and I would visit her most weekends. When I discovered speculoos I thought it was the best thing I’d ever tasted! I brought some home for my housemates and we all loved it. I’d barely eat anything else! So after a while it just started tasting awful, and now I can only eat it every once in a while.

  3. friendly_stranger says:

    Oh I forgot, the BEST thing I miss from Belgium and they still don’t sell here is this:

    http://i.imgur.com/nvyPk.jpg

    <3

  4. vallee says:

    Hi stu!
    They have the chocolate in nl! I got them frm jumbo(Aug 2011) & spar (2 yrs ago).
    Speculoos is the ultimate!
    hope u have luck finding them!
    Cheers,
    val

  5. Citizen Stu says:

    Friendly_Stranger – I must admit that my obsession comes and goes but when have the fever it grips me tight.

    Vallee – You are kidding? I went all the way to another country. Oh well, at least I know now :)

  6. vallee says:

    Hey Stu! Nee! No kidding indeed! I was surprised myself u never came across them! But I’m sure your cross country adventure for those delicious indulgence was well worth the effort ;-)

  7. joann says:

    You crack me up, Stu! I couldn’t stop reading one funny story after another. =) I just came back from a short trip to the Netherlands a few weeks ago to visit my boyfriend and tried a lot of food except for this, speculaas. Seems like I missed out big time eh? Tsk! I got hooked on stroopwafels though.

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