12 everyday items that perfectly sum up Belgium's spirit

1. Chip stands
You’ll find them in most towns and villages, or even just by the side of the road. The friterie or fritkot is a Belgian institution. They serve fries in paper cones, along with a squirt of mayonnaise and a plastic fork. The potatoes are fried twice, so that they’re crisp on the outside and fluffy inside.

2. The coast tram
It’s the longest tram ride in the world, running for 65km along the Belgian coast from De Panne to Knokke. For just a few euros, you can ride the coast tram as it rumbles next to the beach, skirts Zeebrugge’s huge seaport and winds through the elegant streets of Ostend.

3. Brussels Airlines planes
The national airline has a quirky Belgian identity. It has an Airbus with a shark painted on the nose as a homage to Tintin and another plane that looks like a Magritte painting. It might not be the world’s biggest airline, but it reflects the country’s weird nature, just a little.

4. Mussels
It’s an old Belgian tradition. You go to the coast for the day and order a pot of steaming mussels. They’re served in a big black cooking pot, along with a bowl of fries, an empty bowl for the shells and a moist hand wipe. Most of the mussels are cultivated in Dutch coastal waters, but the Dutch don’t like mussels, whereas the Belgians eat them by the ton.

5. The Kwak glass
Many Belgian beers are served in a distinctive glass, but Pauwel Kwak’s glass stands out from the crowd. Designed to serve beer to coachmen who stopped at De Hoorn Inn outside Brussels, the glass has a long stem ending in a round base. It comes with a wooden stand to hold it upright, making it a target for souvenir hunters.

6. White asparagus
It’s known in Belgium as white gold. The pale white asparagus appears on restaurant menus during a short season between April and June. It’s the same vegetable as the more common green asparagus, but grown under thick Flemish soil to preserve the white colour. It’s sold at market stalls in waxed paper and served in restaurants with scrambled eggs.

7. Bikes
They take cycling seriously in Belgium. Every weekend, you see long lines of identically clad cyclists on their bikes, speeding through the flat fields of Flanders or along the Ravel routes of Wallonia. The country hosts several gruelling cycle races every year on bumpy cobbled routes.

8. Odd architecture
Poor Belgium. Most countries are famous for beautiful buildings, but Belgium is known for its ugly houses. There’s even a book called Ugly Belgian Houses, featuring dozens of mad architectural designs that have somehow slipped through the planning process.

9. Waffles
The smell of hot waffle hits you as soon as you step out of any train station. For centuries, Belgians have been using heated waffle irons to make plump, fluffy waffles. But the Belgian waffle served with whipped cream really took off as a modern food fad at the 1958 Brussels Expo and then six years later at the New York World Fair.

10. Dual-language signs
It can be confusing. Or even dangerous. But Belgium is a country with two languages, so you just have to learn that Rijsel is the same place as Lille, and omleiding means exactly the same as déviation. It gets more complicated in Brussels, which is officially bilingual, so every sign is in two languages.

11. Speculoos
Small things matter in Belgium, like the accompanying Lotus speculoos biscuit when you order a coffee. These distinctive cinnamon-flavoured biscuits are produced in a factory founded in 1932 by the Boone family. Located in the village of Lembeke, East Flanders, the Lotus factory produces some seven billion speculoos biscuits every year, as well as dinosaur biscuits to pop in kids’ snack boxes.

12. Gueuze
It’s the beer no one likes. Brewed in the unique microclimate of the Zenne valley, Gueuze is a distinctive sour beer, and fans across the world have recently been raving about this authentic old brew and sales have risen rapidly. Visit the Cantillon brewery in Brussels to find out what all the fuss is about.

This article first appeared in The Bulletin Newcomer, autumn 2016