Title TK

Bicky Burgers are a very common kind of hamburger in Belgium, slowly moving up into the Netherlands too. They are popular, but two questions always return:

1) What does a Bicky Burger consist of?
2) Where can you get the sauces.

This post is in English for all those Bicky-lovers out there who can't find information in English about it (there's only a small entry in Wikipedia and only in Dutch) and want their questions answered.

Firstly, I'm a bit surprised with the love for a Bicky Burger. The meat is actually awful I think, but I guess the sauces make up for it. Exhibit A is my German quasi-vegetarian girlfriend. She is not a vegetarian out of principle, but because she can't stand the idea of eating something that used to be a living creature. Therefore, the only meat I can make her eat is meat that doesn't look or feel like meat. Anything made out of minced meat - like hamburgers - makes a good chance. In any case: when she moved to Belgium, she got hooked on the Bicky Burger too (next to the chocolate, of course).

Whilst browsing the web, I accidentally stumbled upon the topic of Bicky Burgers - that's how I came on the idea of blogging about it: I read a lot of posts from tourists and expats describing how much they love this hamburger but that they miss any information about it. I hope to fill the knowledge gap with this post.

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HISTORY



Belgium has a tradition of friteries, originally booths where one could buy fries and sauces. To my surprise, I can't find a lot of information on their history, but it seems that they started popping up after the First World War and boomed from the 50s until the 90s. During that period, they broadened their range of products to include a variety of snacks, which I won't talk about here except for the Bicky Burger. The Dutch company Beckers (part of Royal Wessanen NV) introduced the Bicky Burger Special (the 'official name' of the Bicky Burger) in 1981. It is unclear why they targeted the Belgian market and not the Dutch market, but I should probably contact Beckers to get the answer to that question.

So, although the company providing it is Dutch, the Bicky Burger is a Belgian phenomenon.

CONTENT



I list all ingredients, but the magic is in the three sauces of course. A Bicky Burger Special consists of:

• Bicky Sesame Bun: a regular bun topped with sesame seed and heated
• 100 gr. Bicky Burger: a deep fried burger, made from a mix of chicken, pork and horse meat^(*)
• 16 gr. Bicky Dressing: a sauce made from cabbage, cauliflower, mustard, dragon, onion and cucumber. The precise quantities are a company secret I suppose.
• 7 gr. Bicky Ketchup: a regular ketchup, slightly on the sweet side.
• 4 gr. Bicky Hot Sauce: I couldn't find out what this one contains. Let me know if you do!
• Bicky Cucumb' Salad: plain lettuce and pickled gherkins
• Bicky Roasted Onions: fried roasted onions

WHERE TO GET THE INGREDIENTS
In principle the ingredients are only sold to companies. If you have a VAT registration, you can access shops who sell theoretically wholesale but in practice sell small quantities too, e.g. Metro and Makro. It seems that occasionally chains like O'Cool - a retailer in frozen products - sell them too.The easiest is probably to socialize with a friterie-owner and to just buy some bottles from him/her.

^(*) Probably quite some people did not want to know this.