Eindhoven, the fifth largest city in the Netherlands with a population of approximately
200000 people, is situated in the south of the country close to Belgium and Germany.
Eindhoven was a small village until the middle of the nineteenth century when Philips was
established. It is now home to the football team PSV Eindhoven. It is a modern city, with a
range of shopping and entertainment facilities. Eindhoven has good railway access to places
such as; Utrecht, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague.

Centre of the Universe
During my eleven years in Philips I had cause to visit, on quite a few occasions, our corporate
headquarters which were based in Eindhoven. When travelling there from the UK you had
two options, either fly to Amsterdam then take the .City Hopper., a cramped propeller driven
craft that took you on the remaining fifteen minutes of your journey; or fly direct using a
similarly cramped craft that bounced you around during the two hour flight, like one of those
numbered balls in a lottery machine. This may give you the idea that Eindhoven,
geographically at least, was not the centre of the universe. However, it was there in the
nineteenth century that the Philips brothers began manufacturing lamps in their bicycle shed;
thus spawning the multi billion dollar corporate empire that you see today.
Bearing this in mind, Eindhoven is somewhat dominated by the presence of Philips. They
have offices and factories everywhere; should they ever shut these down the local hotels,
restaurants, bars, brothels and economy would be dealt a crippling blow. Although my hosts
were always hospitable, I would say that Eindhoven does not have that much to offer in terms
of atmosphere; if you had a house there then the chances are that out of one window you
would see a Philips building, and out of the other you would see a cow in a field.
One peculiarity about my trips to Eindhoven were that they would always seem to coincide
with asparagus season. This is when, as the name suggests, the widely planted asparagus
reaches maturity into its best. Needless to say with vast quantities of this vegetable in
abundance, the local restaurants are keen to offload it in large quantities to their guests. Much
like the Monty Python sketch involving Spam, asparagus was offered in every conceivable
form and combination. I had my fill of asparagus during my visits there; those familiar with
the side effects of a surfeit of this vegetable can attest to the biochemical effects it has on
urine, producing quite a noxious odour, I will not go into details but suffice to say it usually
took me a day or two after a sojourn there before all traces of this had been expunged from
my system. However, it would be churlish of me not to include a basic recipe for asparagus,
and have done so (see page 126).

Indigestion
All cultures have different customs and practices in relation to their cuisine. I have no
intention of ranking one culture.s cuisine above another.s. However, I would suggest that the
lunch offered to me in the Philips canteen one Friday certainly constituted the most
indigestible combination of ingredients I have encountered. I was visiting the Eindhoven
Corporate Internal Audit .bunker. (I nicknamed it this because the building in which it was
housed was constructed in the 1930.s with the same soulless grey architectural style of the
buildings put up by the Third Reich, I often wondered if Philips in the 30´s had subcontracted
Albert Speer as architectural adviser), and one of my colleagues offered to take me to one of
the many Philips canteens for lunch. Normally you would be given a choice of food.
However, in this particular establishment there was no choice; merely a set three course meal,
which was brought to your table by one of the ladies from the kitchen.

When we entered the canteen, we went over to a serving hatch in the wall and rang a small
hand bell. A friendly face popped into view, and my colleague let her know that we had
arrived so that we could be shown where we were sitting. She gave us two small sherry
glasses, which contained a transparent orange coloured liquid. My colleague explained that
this was a non alcoholic liqueur, which was traditionally drunk before a meal. We sat down
and I sipped the mysterious potion. It was sweet and syrupy, not unpleasant; but I do not have
a particularly sweet tooth, and it was not something that I would have chosen myself. The
starter was brought across, tomato soup, hot and creamy; very enjoyable. Then the main
course, hard boiled eggs and cold fish on a bed of onion salad. This strange, to my palette
anyway, combination was washed down with a large glass of milk. The dessert, a plate of
cheeses. Individually none of the ingredients were unusual. However, the combination
presented a confusion of tastes and a challenge to the digestive system. My system was than
more challenged as I was flying back to Sweden later that afternoon and, as airlines always
advise you, it is unwise to eat a fat rich indigestible meal beforehand. I snacked on Rennie
that afternoon.
 

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