E - Eet Smakelijk!

We are at letter E, and I chose the Dutch interjection: Eet smakelijk (roughly translated: Enjoy your meal)  for today's post!

Tonight was one of those nights when we all got served dinner on the sofa by P aka Dada.  He cooked the family's favourite, Rendang beef with rice and string beans.  Eating on the couch is an exception that we take pleasure in once in a while.

We all love eating together by the table , you see, since we all take comfort before we start the meal, in joining hands together in a circle, and reciting altogether the trusted rhyme: "Piep, piep, piep, guten appetit!  Eet smakelijk!".  A combination of our made up German and Dutch mini-ritual before we share our meals.

This mini-ceremony is much enjoyed, specially now that we have let the littlest be the one to initiate in reciting it, and she usually comes up with funny variation to end this rhyme, wishing of a good meal.  In the past she had made up words to replace "guten appetit" (I can't write exactly those words or phrases she made up!), as well as her favourite words, like Thunderbirds or chicken(s).

So, instead of saying the usual lines, she will end it differently for example: "Piep, piep, piep, guten appetit! Thunderbirds" or "Piep, piep, piep, chickens!  Eet smakelijk"  and we never know exactly when she will be wacky, and when she has such a big appetite, she'll just say how it as it is, which is of course "Piep, piep, piep, guten appetit!  Eet smakelijk"

But tonight it was couch night, and everyone was too tired that not one protested aloud (like someone usually will!) that we have not made the circle, and said our piep, piep, pieps.  Still, we wished each other a quick, "Eet smakelijk!" before we took our first bite of our dinner.

I quickly searched tonight for a link of how others in the world say: "Enjoy your meal!", Guten appetit,  Eet smakelijk or as we say when I was still living in the Philippines: kainan na!

What did you have for dinner today? Or perhaps you just had lunch, or about to have breakfast?  Whichever meal it maybe, let me send you well wishes from the Netherlands: Eet smakelijk!