It was a hot day in June. Even the wind coming from the blue waters of Lake Ohrid brought little relief from the unusually high temperatures. North-Macedonian authorities warned people—notably children and the elderly– to stay out of the sun as much as possible. While undoubtedly serious, these weather warnings also comforted me in knowing it wasn’t just my own Dutch-bred heat intolerance making me feel like a piece of soft Gouda cheese left out to melt in the sun.

To deal with the relentless solar embrace, I found myself a breezy, shaded spot by the lakeside where I could try to get some work done. However, the hot weather did nothing to improve my work ethics; I soon found myself ordering a tall glass of ice-cold draft beer. After all, work can always be resumed later, and it’s important to cool down on such a hot day, you know? Little did I realise that the food menu accompanying my refreshing beverage would lead me down a rabbit hole of surprises concerning North Macedonia’s international relationship with the Netherlands, Dutch literature, and tourism.

As it turns out, this wasn’t the average tale of mass tourism gone wrong, of sun-starved hordes seeking solar overexposure in places offering everything but the local cuisine. No, this time, it seems the Dutch won the hearts of locals with their literature, of all things.

A cultural icon

Now, for the non-Dutch and uninitiated among you: it might be prudent to provide you with a bit of contextual information before we continue this tale of Dutch literary conquest.

First, you need to know what a ‘bitterbal’ is. A bitterbal (plural: bitterballen) is a croquette-like object, a culinary concept taken from the French but then, naturally, perfected by the Dutch. Bitterballen are always spherical, made of a thick beef stew, breaded and deep fried, and typically served as snacks accompanying drinks in the late afternoon or evening. It’s the quintessential Dutch pub food, and one of the things I miss most while traveling.

Unfortunately, it is a delicacy almost exclusively available in the Netherlands or in select establishments in destinations that find themselves unfortunately blessed with excessive amounts of Dutch tourists. When encountered outside of its natural habitat, a bitterbal tends to be a symbol of Dutch presence, a rallying banner around which hordes of tall, sunburned lowlanders gather, their glasses of cheap drinks raised in praise of Dutch ingenuity.

Imagine my surprise when I found myself sitting by North Macedonia’s Lake Ohrid, a place blissfully bereft of the usual signs of Dutch mass tourism, being given a menu that proudly listed bitterballen among its culinary offerings. Here, in this relatively quiet corner of the Balkan peninsula, was a place offering bitterballen without being surrounded by loud signs offering fries, frikandellen, or burgers; a place where only the occasional Dutch couple on holiday could be observed. In the days that followed, I did notice more and more Dutch among the masses, however. And after doing some research, I found that there was a reason for this Dutch proliferance in North Macedonia and Ohrid in particular.

The extraordinary exploits of A. Den Doolaard

This brings us to the second—and arguably more relevant—fact you should be aware of. In 1901, on the 7th of February, a certain Cornelis Johannes George Spoelstra was born in the Dutch town of Zwolle. It was a rather unremarkable event, if not for the fact that this man would become a well-known writer, poet, journalist, and voice of the Dutch resistance during the Second World War.

Spoelstra, better known under his pseudonym ‘A. Den Doolaard’, made his debut with a set of poems in 1926. Soon after, he quit his job as an accountant and started traveling and working odd jobs around France and the Balkans. These travels would heavily influence his later works, such as his 1939 historical novella Dolken en Rozenkransen (Daggers and Rosaries). However, he soon became known for his outspoken stance on the rise of national socialism and fascism in Europe. Den Doolaard wrote a number of articles criticizing German and Italian politics for the Dutch newspaper Het Volk that were bundled in 1937 as Swastika over Europa - een grote reportage (The Swastika over Europe: a major report).

Predictably, the nationalist powers of the time didn’t take kindly to criticism, and Den Doolaard found himself expelled from Germany, Austria, and Italy, a persona non grata in the eyes of powers that soon occupied the Netherlands as well. And so, when Germany eventually invaded the country in 1940, Den Doolaard fled south to France and later to England. In London, he worked for the Dutch radio broadcasting station Radio Oranje, where he wrote and delivered speeches of encouragement and resistance for any underground listeners in the occupied Netherlands.

The benefits of influence

After the war, Den Doolaard would continue writing poems, novels, and travel guides that, among other topics, would often mention the Balkans. With the fires of war extinguished and the economy on its way up, tourism was also on the rise again. It was in these post-war decades that two of his popular earlier novels generated specific interest in the Macedonian region.

Oriёnt Express, published in 1934, told the unfortunate story of a Macedonian peasant family entwined with the bloody history of the IMRO, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. Set against struggles, betrayals, and the organization’s downward spiral of corruption and lost ideals, the publication of this work of historical fiction found itself ironically mirrored by a real-world media storm when Alexander I of Yugoslavia was assassinated by a former member of the IMRO in Marseille, only a week before Oriёnt Express went into print.

Another one of his novels, Wedding of the Seven Gypsies, was published in 1939 and largely set in Ohrid, Macedonia. The book describes its protagonist reminiscing on his earlier romantic escapades on his own wedding day, inspired by the music of seven Roma musicians playing at the wedding feast. This novel generated so much interest and tourism for Ohrid in the 1970s and 1980s that the Dutch-Macedonian Chamber of Commerce commissioned a monument to Den Doolaard and his work, which was unveiled in May of 2006.

In addition, a memorial room containing a permanent exhibition of his work was opened in 2011; an initiative by Macedonian writer Mišo Juzmeski, who has written a number of articles detailing the influence Den Doolaard’s work had on Dutch-Macedonian relations.

The fruits of labor

Whoever claimed literature has no influence on real-world events must have been sorely mistaken. Thanks to the literary works of A. Den Doolaard, I was able to satisfy my longing for bitterballen on a lakeside terrace in Macedonia. I’m sure that wasn’t his intention when he wrote his works, but there I was, indulging in the fruits of his exploits. I couldn’t help but romanticize the image of a young Den Doolaard in the late 1920s, sitting in the same spot I would be sitting almost a hundred years later, wondering if the scene in front of him could be improved by a plate of greasy, steaming hot bitterballen.

Could he have realised that his work would lead to his future fellow countrymen and women being able to enjoy these little round wonders on the far side of the European continent? Would he be horrified at the blatant commercial gluttony of it, or be amazed by the progress being wrought by his words? For that matter, what would happen if I started writing a novel set in some remote corner of the world? Bitterballen in North Korea? After entertaining the thought for a while, I decided against it. The world has enough to offer in terms of culinary exploration.

And besides, my bitterballen were getting cold.