ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that there are some indications that the dynamics of taste and distinction among the inhabitants and visitors in the city has been influential in the general process of diffusion and appropriation of exotic foods. Amsterdam is today a cosmopolitan city with a strongly multicultural character. Residents and visitors alike are able to find almost any exotic food their hearts and stomachs desire. The city of Amsterdam has become a breeding ground for wide-scale foreign and exotic food innovation, resulting from a dynamic and entangled mixture of migrating foods, cookery knowledge, and people. The VOC (United East-Indies Company) trade from 1602 onwards was crucial in the initial processes of the diffusion of exotic, foods. The diffusion process accelerated after 1900, especially after the Second World War. Decolonization, labour migration and the Dutch refugee policy brought new flows of foreign and exotic people, foods and knowledge to the city again and again.
