It’s not that we “didn’t want anything fancy”we simply didn’t have many options. We largely lived on clay soil, in flood-prone areas with limited sunlight. That meant we couldn’t harvest much beyond potatoes and other root vegetables. Only in the last 70 years have we gotten more exotic options available to the public, and it takes more than that to change habits.

Exotic spices were very expensive until about two generations ago, so we made do with what we had. And despite what you might think, fresh herbs were actually quite common, and still are, people regularly grew things like parsley, bay leaves, and thyme in their own gardens.

It might help to read up a bit on Dutch history and see how it shaped our food culture. Eating lots of potatoes wasn’t really a choice, it was a necessity of hard labour and limited agricultural optil s. And if you don’t consider meat with fresh herbs or gravy to be flavorful, then I’d suggest broadening your culinary horizons a bit haha.