Dutch heaven in west Edmonton
By Tyler Grant
EDMONTON – Tucked between a gas station and the Taoist Tai Chi society in the bluish-grey building at 157226 Stony Plain Road is a slice of Dutch heaven.
Ben’s Meats & Deli has been operating from this location for just shy of 60 years. And, it’s been “family owned and operated since 1953.”
- Paul Dykxhoorn reaches for a piece of peppered jerky at Ben’s Meats & Deli at 15726 Stony Plain Road in Edmonton, Alberta on Tuesday, February 15, 2011.
Quaint, family run businesses are so rare these days. How do they do it? What do they have to offer that big-box stores don’t?
“The best way,” says Dave.
“We make our own sausages. We still cut our own beef. We make all our own beef jerky.”
One of the specialties Dave makes by hand with his 50-year-old sausage press is “dried mettwurst.”
Dave explains mettwurst is “a special air-dried sausage that doesn’t get smoked or cooked. It just hangs up.”
“It’s a specialty you can’t really find anywhere else.”
Cheese
But it’s not just about the meat; the Dutch have a certain affection for cheese as well.
Nenah Esperanza, one of four full-time workers, cuts up the wheels and packages the quarters.
There’s Gouda galore packed in the open refrigerators. There’s mild, medium and aged. There’s also low fat Leyden, and cheese with cloves in it.
- Owner of Ben’s, Dave Vanleeuwen, making mettwurst on his machine that refuses to quit after 50 years. Photograph by Tyler Grant
Candy
To your left is the liquorice. Every kind of liquorice you’ve never imagined. It’s a mouthful just to pronounce the names. And most of them are salted.
It’s a taste you’ll either acquire, or not.
Ingrid Sebes said she drove in from Sherwood Park with her daughter Samantha Van Derwerf because Ben’s has “the meat and the candy that we want.”
There’s plenty of sweet candy, too. You can let yourself go like a kid.
Samantha has a sweet tooth for small, coloured candies called Tum Tums.
“Hmm, I like this one,” she says.
Charlene Ages, another of the four full-time workers in constant rotation, generally stocks the shelves with Euro Shopper cookies, gravy-like sauces, deliciously salty spreads and Dutch cookie and cake mixes. They even have De Ruijter chocolate, vanilla and fruit flavoured sprinkles North Americans would put on cupcakes, but the Dutch put on toast.
“Unless you grow up with them, you’re not going to like them,” says Paul Dykxhoorn, one of the employees.
“I go through phases of them,” says Dykxhoorn. “I’ll eat them and think ‘this is really good’. And then, I won’t touch them for a while.”
But, he maintains, they’re “really good.”
Edmonton has a great selection of independent butchers, from Ben’s in the west to Acme on the south side to Real Deal in the Ellerslie Road area. Kudos to Tyler for highlighting a better way to buy meat.