A slice of brown bread topped with aged Dutch cheese and a crushed hard-boiled egg — the pocket meal of the wandering painter, no cooking required, ready to be eaten under a tree.

Why this dish? Van Gogh was an indefatigable walker: he covered enormous distances on foot, from the mining Borinage to the Brabant countryside. On the road, his meal fit in a pocket: a hunk of bread, a piece of Dutch cheese, and a hard-boiled egg. His record confirms it — bread, cheese, eggs, irregular, sacrificed to buying colors.

When I set out on the roads, my friend, I did not burden myself with a feast: a piece of bread, a slice of our good Dutch cheese, a hard-boiled egg, and that was enough to walk all day. I would sit at the edge of a field, eating while watching the sowers and the light on the wheat, and I believe that this poor meal nourished my eyes as much as my belly. The slightly aged cheese, the brown bread — it is solid and costs almost nothing; thus I had a few sous left for colors, and colors, you see, were my true hunger.

How it was made : Dutch cheese, a pressed cheese with long keeping qualities, was an ideal travel food in the 19th century: it did not spoil and was filling. With bread and a hard-boiled egg, it made up the universal cold meal of walkers, peddlers, and Northern workers.

The contemporary twist : Present as an “artist's picnic” on a board: bread, shards of Gouda, cut egg, a sprig of watercress — wrapped in a checked cloth tied with string.

Vincent van Gogh · Charactorium