FoodRoute through North Brabant
Who says Veghel, says food. Family businesses from here are among the top in the Netherlands, Europe and the world. Top caterer Maison van den Boer, Mars, Jumbo, Campina, Sligro, AgriFirm. And add hundreds of agricultural companies in the area to that. Veghel became an important transport hub in 1826 thanks to the railway connection 's Hertogenbosch-Helmond and the construction of the Zuid-Willemsvaart in 1826. That is why the Veghelse Noordkade was designated in 1915 as the ideal place for the first large grain silo of the Cooperative Trade Association. Farmers from the surrounding area brought their harvests to the largest compound feed factory in Europe, where the CHV processed the grains into other pressed cattle cakes.
The old feed factory has grown into a gastronomic and cultural hotspot. In addition to food companies, there are various eateries, a brewery, bars, caterers, shops, theaters, music venues, rehearsal rooms for bands and a museum. So multicultural culinary, that current Noordkade.
The old silo can be visited with a guided tour. The rest of the post-industrial complex is also worth a visit. Large silos and old factory machines still testify to the activity of yesteryear. You walk over footbridges at various heights through the hall where the colossal mixing kettles were once filled. It looks like an übersized greenhouse, one from science fiction films with settlements on other planets. Steel frames, glass domes, hanging plants and all kinds of industrial elements. Beautiful.

The route starts at the parking lot where there are hop plants and fruit trees. In addition to Veghel and the imposing Noordkade, the municipality of Meijerijstad also consists of zippers of narrow winding roads. Around Olland we tour through an agriculturally determined landscape, with little through traffic outside the main routes. There are trees along the road that provide pleasant shade, in the country there are fruit trees here and there with a clearly more commercial purpose.
On the map, the river Dommel looks tempting with all kinds of streamers. Unfortunately, the banks are not paved, fortunately there are plenty of alternatives. Every now and then the asphalt ends in a sand path, it is so rural here, but then the route continues to the left or right, paved again to the Brabant capital Den Bosch.
Who says Den Bosch, says Bossche bol. The one and only comes from Jan de Groot bakery, where you can also taste this moor head from Brabant at a table. Except on Mondays, because De Groot's bakery shop is closed on Mondays. Should you therefore let this Bossche delicacy pass us by? Of course not. Because just like Van Dobben's Amsterdam croquette, De Groot's Bossche bol is also served outside the shop itself.
On one of the cozy terraces on the Market Square, for example, or in the stately Hotel Royaal. The atmosphere on the square is a lot more pleasant than the feverish visions painted by Hieronymus Bosch, the 's-Hertogenbosch son who now looks out over the Brabant atmosphere on a pedestal and seems to look a little jealous after you on your motorcycle.

The Loonse en Drunense and Drunense Duinen are nicknamed the Brabant Sahara. That immediately makes you thirsty. Nowadays wine and even whiskey are made in Brabant. But the real Burgundian is of course the Brabant beer. Of the twelve Trappist breweries worldwide, two are located in North Brabant.
Trappist monastery La Trappe in Berkel-Enschot has a good PR. Cistercian monks have a duty of silence to break free from self-centeredness and to get closer to God. 'Taste the Silence' is the slogan with which they market their beer. But it is not quiet when guide Toon Gloudemans shows visitors around the monastery brewery. Because Toon is a great marketing gun.
He is the prototype of a Burgundian Brabander. He treats you to a never-ending stream of beautiful stories and witty anecdotes. Toon has set itself the goal that none of the visitors will ever forget his stories. The approximately 50,000 visitors who visit the monastery brewery every year should tell their family and friends about La Trappe, that is Toon's philosophy. And next time in the café or supermarket automatically choose La Trappe. This is how Toon's tam-tam works.
After the tour you can taste a nice glass of Nillis, a dark zero percent beer. With a few bottles of specialty beer in your motorcycle cases, you then go past the monastery gate to Tilburg. After such a thirst quencher you now also want a bite to eat. A person, whether a monk or a motorcyclist, does not live on beer alone.
In restaurant Villa la Vida, cheerful colors splash from the living room walls. Fortunately, that zest for life also translates into the quality of the lunch dishes, which can be enjoyed indoors or outside on the terrace by the water.

With a satisfied stomach and therefore in a cheerful mood you pick up the route again. That Brabant farmland is wonderful to drive through. And products come from that are on the menus of the local catering industry. Bioboerderij 't Schop, for example, specializes in meat from Angus cows, a breed that thrives on the land around Hilvarenbeek.
You will be warmly welcomed by mother Van den Broek. Son Bart shows you the company and tells about the passion of his family, who have been farming here for generations. 'You can no longer make it as a farmer with agriculture alone. A little farmer today needs to diversify. Our dad already understood that in the 1980s, against the trend of scaling up at the time.'
't Schop has pigs, for the show, and cows, for the meat. 'Our Angus cows graze on areas of Nature Management and enrich those lands in the context of nature management and soil diversification. Small but nice, that is our company philosophy. We remove all intermediaries and sell our organic beef directly to the consumer. They were one of the first in Brabant, if not the Netherlands, to have a farm shop.'
Time proved father Van den Broek right. Bart: 'We have to keep a lot of balls in the air. People who bought meat in our store asked how they could best prepare it. For example, we gave masterclasses in boning and barbecuing. Fortunately, we enjoy explaining this and we now receive about ten thousand visitors a year for our activities.'

Those pigs in the mud looked a lot happier than Hieronymus Bosch on his pedestal. You wind again on narrow roads along meadows and fields around the course of the Hoogeindsche Beek on one side and the Reusel along the other side of the N629.
The forest is also abundant here. Here and there a fen and such a sturdy Brabant farmhouse with colorful shutters and a thatched roof. Much of that stuff has been transformed into a catering facility by Brabant entrepreneurs, such as the In den Bockereyder inn at the end of a road that is legally accessible for motorcyclists.
There are also fine driving roads against the Belgian border. You will also drive through the Kempen, the nature reserve that got its name from the Latin Campina, which means open plain. And where did the dairy in Veghel get the letters on the milk cartons from?

Reusel, Hulsel, Bladel, Duizel. Brabant wouldn't be Brabant if there weren't a number of inns along the route. In Bergeijk, gourmands like to drop by regional restaurant De Hofkaemer for a regional tasting, regional treat or a regional dish from the menu. The time when only potatoes were eaten in Brabant is long gone.
Who says potato eaters, says Van Gogh. This Brabant-born painter had a keen eye for the charm of the Brabant landscape. Since he painted here, some buildings and roads have been added. But the essence of the Brabant landscape remains the same. Made by nature, designed by man.

You usually don't drive into a city for fun. But just like for Den Bosch, you can make an exception for Eindhoven. People from Brabant who know can strongly advise you to drive to Willemstraat and try Houben's sausage rolls there. The look & feel of the store is perfect, between traditional and hip: very Brabant.
The menu choice is dizzying. Sausage rolls come in all sorts of flavours. Traditionally with sustainable minced pork. Vegan based on legumes. With chilli mince, truffle, asparagus (in season), halal lamb, sport (with minced chicken and wholemeal flour). Or do you prefer a sausage: a combination of sausage roll and sandwich?
Can't choose? Hoppa: why don't you just grab the tasting board with your choice of five types of sausage bread or ten mini sausage rolls and sauces? Houben also does teekawee: twenty 'mienekes' in a star box, with refined recipes composed by star chefs. It gets crammed into the motorcycle cases. On to Nuenen. Because who says Nuenen, says Van Gogh. There is no Hieronymus Bosch in the park in front of hotel Auberge Vincent, but the statue of the Potato Eaters. Also three-dimensional is the Opwetten watermill, which still looks exactly like in Van Gogh's painting. It is also important for you that it now houses a restaurant, where you can conclude our Burgundian scrub tour through Brabant in an appropriate atmosphere.