Couques de Dinant

Famously hard honey biscuits from Dinant, pressed into decorative moulds

Address Rue Grande, 5500 Dinant

Dinant's most famous edible export, the couque is a hard, golden honey biscuit shaped into elaborate designs — figures, animals, coats of arms — using carved wooden moulds. The recipe contains only flour and honey, baked to a dense, glassy consistency that is meant to be sucked rather than bitten; chewing one is widely held to be how to break a tooth in Dinant.

Several bakeries on Rue Grande and Place Reine Astrid sell them, both small and as elaborate showpieces over a metre across. The traditional designs make them as much a souvenir as a snack. Pair with a glass of Belgian beer if you intend to actually eat one — the honey softens slightly in the company of liquid.

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A story
Local legend says the biscuit was invented during the 1466 siege when starving citizens mixed the only ingredients they had — flour and honey — and baked the resulting paste. The biscuits proved so hard and so durable that they survived in long-storage form thereafter. Even today, the standard advice is to suck them rather than bite them.