Many painters from early modernism traveled to Volendam, Katwijk, Egmond and other places along the North Sea coast to record fishing life and therefore also the boats. The colors and life were captured en plein air. The canvases were placed down and the first outlines of a work were drawn up with a traveling (painter's) easel. In many paintings you therefore see flat-bottomed boats that were used at the time: bomb barges. Like in Mesdag's painting. Every painter during the period of the Hague School drew or painted such a ship at one time or more. It is a typical Dutch scene and world famous.
Eickelberg
We delved into the history of this barge and its customs and came up with the inspiration for a dish. A 'bomb' is a simple open, flat-bottomed vessel that can easily become stranded. Coastal villages such as Scheveningen (only a coastal port since the early 20th century), Katwijk aan Zee, Noordwijk aan Zee, Zandvoort and Egmond aan Zee did not have a port. The ships from these villages had to sail from the beach and land there again. That happened with teams of horses.
The fishery was aimed at catching and landing flatfish and roundfish and to a lesser extent fresh herring and was unloaded on the beach and sold there. This sale took place at auction and was under municipal supervision. Bomschuits were slow and unwindable sailors, but they offered the crew a stable workplace with daggerboards placed on both sides. The length/width ratio of the bomb barge was 2:1 and could accommodate 12 men. They built a bomb barge with a view to it; pass and had a length of about 29 feet, a width of about 16 feet, a hollow of about 5 feet.
It inspired us to create a classic dish of sole rolls. 4 plaice fillets filled with smoked salmon (we roll it up into a bomb and stick a cocktail stick through it as a kind of ignition). We make a champagne sauce with shallots, some butter, lemon, a large glass of prosecco, 200 ml of cream and some grated cheese. As a garnish we choose sea lavender, samphire or simply some twisted carrot and potato.
