Hagelslag is the Dutch name for what Americans call sprinkles, or jimmies. They eat hagelslag on buttered bread. Usually it’s chocolade hagel, but sometimes there is vruchten hagel (fruit hagel), which is basically fruit-flavored sugar. In this photo, you see special orange hagel created to commemorate the coronation of the new Dutch king, Willem-Alexander (the Dutch royal family is from the House of Orange). “Long live the king!” it says. At lunch today here in the south of Holland, my young dining companion finished his meal with a butter-and-hagelslag sandwich.

This is a very Dutch image!