Why the Dutch Love Herring: The Netherlands’ Best Street Food
Walk through a Dutch market, a seaside boulevard, or a busy square near a train station and you will eventually see it: a compact stall flying red, white and blue flags, a short queue of people who look as if they know exactly what they want, and someone holding a silvery fish by the tail. That snack is haring, and for many people in the Netherlands it is not a curiosity. It is lunch, tradition, and one of the country’s most democratic street foods.
Tourists often hesitate. The fish looks raw. The eating method can look theatrical. Locals rarely hesitate at all. The Netherlands eats tens of millions of herring a year, and the arrival of the new season still makes national news. To understand why, you have to look past the first impression and into history, technique, and habit.
A small fish with a large past
Herring and the Dutch have been bound together since the late Middle Ages. The North Sea offered shallow waters and huge shoals. The problem was not catching the fish. It was keeping it.
According to Dutch tradition, a fisherman from Biervliet in Zeeland, Willem Beukelszoon, solved that problem in the 14th century with a method called kaken, or gibbing. The gills and most of the guts are removed, but the pancreas is left in place. Enzymes from that organ help cure the fish in brine. The result lasts longer, travels farther, and tastes milder than untreated raw herring.
Historians debate how much of the Beukelszoon story is legend and how much is fact. What is not in dispute is the effect of the technique. Once herring could be packed in barrels and shipped inland and abroad, it became a commodity as well as a meal. Dutch fleets expanded. Ports grew. By the Golden Age, herring was part of the country’s trading machine. Some writers still say Amsterdam was built on herring bones. That is an exaggeration with a kernel of truth: cheap, preserved protein helped feed cities and fill ships.
The fish was never only an export. It was also everyday food. That double life still defines it. Herring is a protected culinary speciality and a snack you eat standing up.
What “Hollandse Nieuwe” really means
The version the Dutch wait for is Hollandse Nieuwe, sometimes sold as maatjesharing. It is young Atlantic herring caught after a spring feeding binge on plankton, when the fish is at its fattiest. To use the protected name, the herring must reach a minimum fat content of 16 percent and be cleaned, salted and ripened in the traditional way.
The catch window is limited. Fish taken from the start of May through the end of August can qualify. They may be sold as Hollandse Nieuwe into September. After that, you are usually eating earlier catch that has been frozen and thawed. The fish is still herring. It is not the same event.
A common misunderstanding is that Dutch herring is raw sushi. It is not cooked, but it is not untreated either. After gibbing and light salting, commercial herring is frozen at about –20°C for at least 24 hours to kill parasites, then thawed and cleaned. The texture is soft and buttery. The flavour is salty, clean and oceanic rather than aggressively fishy. People who like good sashimi often like this more than they expect.
Quality depends on freshness after cleaning. A busy stall that prepares the fish to order is the standard locals look for. Pre-cut supermarket packs are cheaper and convenient. Enthusiasts treat them as a different product.
Flag Day and the fifth season
The Dutch do not treat the first good catch as a quiet delivery. Each June the season opens with the auction of the first barrel of Hollandse Nieuwe, usually in or around Scheveningen. The barrel contains only a few dozen fish. In recent years it has sold for tens of thousands of euros, with the money going to charity. In 2025 the first barrel raised €89,500.
The public celebration is Vlaggetjesdag, Flag Day. Boats are dressed with flags. Crowds come for herring, music and the feeling that summer has a specific taste. The date has shifted over time because the fish must be fat enough. When the catch is late, the festival still happens, sometimes with herring from the previous year. The ritual matters as much as the calendar.
People joke that new herring is more important than Christmas. That is not a policy statement. It is a way of saying the season has a mood. After months of leaner winter fish, the first fatty herring tastes like a reset.
How you are supposed to eat it
There is no single correct method, which is why the Dutch argue about it.
In Rotterdam, The Hague and many coastal towns, the classic pose is still the one visitors photograph: hold the fish by the tail, dip it in chopped raw onion, tip your head back, and bite. In Amsterdam the usual order is in stukjes. The herring is cut into pieces, served with onion and sweet-sour pickles, and eaten with a toothpick. You can also ask for a broodje haring, the same fish in a soft white roll.
Onions and pickles have a practical history. The farther a town sat from the sea, the older the herring could be by the time it arrived. Sharp toppings hid the edge. Fresh Hollandse Nieuwe does not need them. Most people add them anyway because the combination works: fat against bite, salt against sweetness.
A first-timer does not have to perform. Start with pieces or a sandwich. If you like it, try the tail method later. The important part is eating the fish soon after it is cleaned. Herring left sitting in a bag for hours is how people decide they hate herring.
Street prices vary by city and season, but a single herring from a stall commonly costs a few euros. A sandwich costs a little more. That is part of the appeal. It is special without being expensive.
Why the habit survived
Taste is the first reason. When the fish is fatty and freshly cleaned, it melts instead of chewing like leftover seafood. The second reason is health, or at least the Dutch version of it. Herring is rich in omega-3 fats, vitamin D, vitamin B12 and protein. It has long been sold as food that does you good while you stand on a pavement.
The third reason is culture. Herring is cheap enough for a weekday and ceremonial enough for June. It belongs to markets, harbours, after-work hunger and, in the Catholic south, the old rhythm of eating fish around Lent. It is also a story the country tells about itself: a people who learned to live with water also learned to preserve what the sea gave them.
There is a quieter fourth reason. Herring stalls are social infrastructure. You do not need a reservation. You do not need to speak the language well. You point, pay, eat, and move on. In a country famous for cycling, calendars and practicality, that kind of food fits.
None of this means every Dutch person loves it. Some never acquired the taste. Some prefer kibbeling, fried whitefish with garlic sauce, or a cone of fries with mayonnaise. Herring still occupies a different category. It is the snack foreigners are dared to try and the one locals measure a stall by.
How to try it properly
Look for a haringkar or vishandel with a line of regulars and fish cleaned in front of you. In Amsterdam, long-running names include Stubbe’s Haring near the Singel, Frens Haringhandel by the flower market, and the fish stall at Albert Cuypmarkt. Similar carts exist in almost every town. The best sign is not a tourist review. It is a lunchtime queue of people who could have eaten anywhere else.
Eat it the same day. If you visit in June or July, ask for Hollandse Nieuwe. If you visit in winter, you can still eat herring; just know you are not getting the same seasonal prize.
The Dutch love herring because it is history you can hold by the tail. It is a medieval preservation trick that became street food, a protected speciality that still costs less than a sit-down lunch, and a once-a-year arrival that the whole country pretends not to wait for and then waits for anyway. If the Netherlands has a national bite, this is it: cold, salty, a little ceremonial, and gone in a minute.
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