By Porter Lang
Two Dutch biscuits, one season, and a long-running habit of using their names for each other. If you stand in front of a shelf in late autumn and cannot tell which bag is which, you are in good company. The sources we read say the Dutch mix them up too.
What the language body says
The most direct source is Onze Taal, the Dutch language society, whose advice page answers exactly this question. It says pepernoten are pieces of peperkoek, a spiced cake, and are somewhat chewy. Kruidnoten are half-balls of speculaas and are crisp. In practice, it says, people often use pepernoten as an umbrella word for both.
The same page quotes the Van Dale dictionary, which defines a pepernoot as a small cube of peperkoek or a half-ball of speculaas, eaten in the period around Sinterklaas. So the dictionary itself covers both shapes under one word. We call that the main point of the whole subject: the name is looser than the biscuit.
Pepernoten, according to Wikipedia
Wikipedia’s article on the pepernoot describes a Dutch cookie-like confection eaten traditionally around Sinterklaas in the Netherlands and Belgium. The name means pepper nuts. It says they are light brown and square, fairly chewy, and that they harden gradually in the air. Ingredients it gives are rye flour, sugar and anise, with some versions adding cinnamon and cloves. It says they are similar to the German Pfeffernüsse and are made from the same ingredients as taai-taai, which it does not describe further.
Kruidnoten, according to Wikipedia
The article on kruidnoten describes something different: hard, cookie-like pieces based on speculaas, about the size of a coin and shaped like a flattened hemisphere. The ingredients it lists are flour, brown sugar, butter and a spice mix of pepper, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, cardamom and nutmeg. It lists pepernoten as an alternative name, so Wikipedia’s two pages do not agree with each other. One describes pepernoten as square, rye-based and chewy with anise. The other treats the name as another word for round speculaas biscuits.
We show the conflict and do not settle it. Our reading: a chewy square biscuit with anise and a crisp round one with a speculaas spice mix are different products, and Onze Taal supports treating them separately even though shoppers do not.
Where the word pepper comes from
Onze Taal cites an 1872 issue of the Taal- en Letterbode saying pepper used to be a general name for all spices. That, it says, is how peppermint and the pepernoot got their names, and why a spiced cake was often called peperkoek. It also says today’s recipes often contain speculaas spices instead of pepper, and not always white pepper.
Onze Taal quotes the 1931 Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal, which described a pepernoot as a small pastry of flour and honey, sugar or syrup, with pepper and other spices. According to that dictionary, in the south of the Netherlands kruidnoten were also called pepernoten. Kruidnoten were therefore once biscuits and not sweets, the page says, and the two words have long been used interchangeably.
Taai-taai
Wikipedia’s pepernoot page is the only source we loaded that mentions taai-taai, and it gives no description beyond the shared ingredients. The Onze Taal page we read says nothing about it. We could not load a page that describes it, so we leave it there. A buyer who sees the name should ask for the ingredient list, because the sources do not say how it looks or tastes.
Throwing them
Both Wikipedia articles describe the custom of throwing the biscuits. The pepernoot article says people throw them by the handful around a room so that children can search for them. It says the custom is said to derive from an ancient fertility symbol, similar to throwing rice at weddings, and that parents of newborns once put one or two carrots under the baby’s pillow in the belief that Sinterklaas would bless the child with pepernoten. We report that as the article’s claim, not as established history.
The kruidnoten article says that on Sinterklaas eve, candies are thrown around the home for children to collect. It says kruidnoten were once also thrown on pavements and at schools, but this became less common, possibly for hygiene reasons. The throwing is most likely a symbol of Sinterklaas’s generosity, it says, though some suggest a deeper meaning. Wikipedia’s Sinterklaas article says that at the steamboat arrival, pepernoten and kruidnoten, which it describes as small round gingerbread-like cookies, are thrown into the crowd.
Strooigoed and the shelf
Kruidnoten mixed with sweets are called strooigoed, says the kruidnoten article, and packages may include gummies and sugar candies. The pepernoot article calls pepernoten “het bekende strooigoed”, the well-known throwing sweets, without explaining the term further. So strooigoed can mean a mix or a category, depending on the page.
Chocolate-coated versions come in white, milk, dark and truffle chocolate, the kruidnoten article says. It lists a long run of other flavours, including caramel with sea salt, coconut and liquorice, and says the list comes from 2021. The article says pop-up shops devoted to kruidnoten appear yearly in many cities, and some schools and supermarkets run sessions where children shape pre-made dough into kruidnoten.
Belgium
The kruidnoten article contains a tension. It says they are commonly eaten in Belgium, and also that Flemish people did not eat them for a long time and that Flemish traditions around them are lacking, with interest growing around the late 2010s. It adds that speculoos is the Flemish variant of speculaas, described as not spicy and softer, and that instead of kruidnoten, Flemish helpers throw letter-shaped biscuits with regional names such as karolientjes, mokskes, pieknieken and nicnacjes. We repeat the page and do not reconcile it.
Side by side
Pepernoot: chewy, square, rye flour, anise (Wikipedia); a piece of peperkoek, somewhat chewy (Onze Taal). Kruidnoot: crisp half-ball of speculaas (Onze Taal); hard, coin-sized, flattened hemisphere, butter and a spice mix (Wikipedia). Usage: the one word covers both (Onze Taal, Van Dale). Our reading: when a bag says pepernoten, check the picture and the ingredients before assuming the texture.
What kind of sources these are
Onze Taal (a language society, in Dutch) and two Wikipedia articles, plus Wikipedia’s Sinterklaas article. We found no producer’s page, no standards body and no regulation, and we name no brand or shop. We left out the retailer names, prices, calorie figures and everything about allergens, which a label should answer.
Quick answers
- What is the difference between pepernoten and kruidnoten? According to Onze Taal, pepernoten are chewy pieces of peperkoek and kruidnoten are crisp half-balls of speculaas. In practice, people use pepernoten for both.
- Why are they called pepper nuts? Onze Taal says that in the past pepper was a general word for all spices, as an 1872 source puts it.
- Are kruidnoten eaten in Belgium? Wikipedia says so, and also says Flemish people did not eat them for a long time, so its page points both ways.
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