The Great Speculoos Mystery

Speculoos Detective

Case File #113
I should have seen this coming… In hindsight it was the logical conclusion to all the stories I shared about my Speculoos addiction… but I didn’t see it coming.

It all started on a normal day like any other. There was no reason to suspect it was going to be any different. I woke up, got ready for work, took the train and walked into the office. Nothing was out of the ordinary so far.

But then, as I approached my desk, I did discover something out of the ordinary. I discovered this…

Speculoos Jar

A single jar of Crunchy Speculoos Sandwich Spread. No note. No name. Nothing to indicate where or whom it had came from. It was a mystery, a mystery jar of Crunchy Speculoos Sandwich Spread.

The mere presence of this jar raised so many questions. Where did it come from? Who is my mysterious Speculoos benefactor? Is it a gift of friendship from someone who wishes to remain anonymous (a shy admire maybe) or is it a warning from a hidden foe? Someone who has had enough of me saying Speculoos instead of Speculaas? Is there a greater game a foot here? Could this single jar of Speculoos only be the beginning of a complex game of cat and mouse? It will take all my deductive reasoning to solve this mystery…

There would be easier ways but apparently interrogating co-workers is “against company policy” so deductive reasoning it is.

First let us look at the clues we have available to us. We know that this mystery person is aware of my Speculoos addiction given the very specific nature of the gift they chose to leave on my desk. From this we can deduce the mystery man or woman reads this very blog. We can also deduce that they are someone who has access to my office. Perhaps they are someone I work alongside every day, perhaps they bribed a security guard to gain entrance, or perhaps they used the stealth of nightfall to break in undetected. Unfortunately this still leaves a wide variety of suspects.

Luckily our mystery supplier has slipped up. The biggest clue can be obtained from the jar itself if you look very carefully at the photo. Do you see it? It’s right there, staring us in the face… Studying this jar we know without a shadow of a doubt the fiendishly clever mastermind behind this while mystery… shops at The Jumbo!

Unfortunately as a civilian I am apparently not allowed to demand security camera footage from all the Jumbo grocery stores in the Amsterdam area. This sadly means that this clue is another dead end unless I start stalking co-workers to find out where they shop (which is also against company policy and I have been requested to stop doing).

But perhaps the jar has more clues to reveal to us. Upon dusting the jar for finger prints I was able to discover several distinguishing marks!

Speculoos Finger Prints

And a very clear finger print…

Speculoos Finger Prints Close Up

But again, unfortunately I do not have access to a finger print database to identify them and sending an email to all@office requesting that they submit their finger prints to me is also against company policy (what are they trying to hide?).

Speculoos Email

With no more leads to follow I must sadly close this investigation for now. However, it has not been a total loss. With my considerable detective skills I have been able to deduce that the suspect is a person who reads the internet, might be someone I work with, shops and The Jumbo and has fingers!

For now the identity of my mysterious Speculoos benefactor remains unknown but the net is slowly closing. One day I will find them… or maybe they will make themselves known. It is only a matter of time.

Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

20 Responses

  1. Joey says:

    It’s good speculoos but the crunchy one with the yellow cover is the best (also from Jumbo).

  2. Tamkara says:

    I need to try this Speculous! Off to the shops I go!

  3. AQK1982 says:

    Hahahaha good luck with your detective work. I hope you will find your mysterious benefactor.

    • Invader Stu says:

      Hhhhmmmm… That’s just the kind of thing a mysterious benefactor would say. Did you break into my office.

      • AQK1982 says:

        I haven’t been to Amsterdam in a while. Sooooo, it’s not me :-)

        However I’ll be in Amsterdam tomorrow…..

  4. Terri says:

    I suppose it would also be against company policy to set up a “Spectuloos cam” to monitor the activity around your desk when you’re not there? ;D

  5. Well, you can rule me out. I was going to ask what brand Jumbo was (as it is nonexistent in France). Then I kept reading.

    Although: ruling myself out as a potential giver would be *exactly* the kind of thing I would do, wouldn’t it?

    And whilst reading this post, I couldn’t help but think of the opening title to the series Sherlock, Law & Order and NCIS. :P

  6. Hmm, sounds like the mystery is as thick as the speculoos that you received.

    Did you test the suspicious item for poison? Perhaps someone knows you are an addict and wants to hide the smell of arsenic in the tub of goodness that you would not resist.

    Or maybe someone wants to increase your addiction so that you will become so dependent on these mysterious treats that you will do anything for this person(s).

    I would suggest that you leave the jar there – unopened – to show that you’re made of sterner stuff. However, I suspect that you would rather bathe with fire-breathing insects than do that ;-)

  7. MikeTheRed says:

    As a newly arrived expat in Holland (I arrived from the US a week and a half ago), one of the first things I did was go out to get some Speculoos spread after reading your many many posts on the subject.

    All I have to say is: OH. MY. GOD.

    It’s like they took those Biscoff cookies that you get on Delta flights in the US, and turned it into a peanut butter-like spread. It is the most glorious thing I’ve ever tasted.

    WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME!?!?!

  8. Marianne says:

    Weren’t me neither, but here’s another one who is going to have to try the stuff – or maybe I shouldn’t because I get the impression that once you start there’s no turning back. They are rather good at sugary toppings for your bread here. My daughter persuaded me to get kokosbrood this week.

    • Invader_Stu says:

      OH yes. Once you try it there is no turning back. But I’ve found that with most the sugery toppings. Have you tried Suiker Brood yet? That is dangerous stuff too.

  9. Andrew says:

    Why did you freeze it?