I will be touring Holland in late summer and was looking for advice on meals and fast food available. Also any shopping advice on gifts to bring back home to U.S

You will find many places that sell little fresh sandwiches--always delicious.

There is a wide range of fast food; lots of small shops selling french fries (with mayonaise of course) and deep fried snacks such as 'bitterballen'. Another fast food specialty is herring; served raw with chopped onions.
Pancakes are also popular (sweet as well as savoury) and these are a meal in themselves. Poffertjes are mini pancakes, served with icing sugar.
Indonesian food is also available throughout The Netherlands; usually not expensive. Try a Rijsttafel; a selection of small indonesian dishes, or a plate of nasi goreng (fried rice) with sateh; this is a good inexpensive option for dinner.

I love eating fast food in Amsterdam..The herring is a favorate of mine, you can buy it at several little fish booths set up around Amsterdam (as well as other fish)The fries and mayo are delicious, try a falafel or shoarma..Pastries are everywhere..Try Feebo if you want something greasy..
There are restaurants everywhere for any budget..

Tulips & TracyB - we are going to Amsterdam, Bruge & Delft late July. I have a child with a nut/peanut allergy. Just wondering what are bitterballen & Freebo & would they have nuts in them. Any other thoughts of pastry or snacks that would routinely have nuts & it would not be obvious? We usually ask but would be good to know beforehand. We would probably avoid Indonesian because of the nuts. Thanks so much for any advice. Betsy

BetsyG - Some hopefully helpful advice: You have a very specific question - not really related to the OP. And Tulips and TracyB posted to this thread several days ago.

There are many Fodorites who have experinece/knowledge of nut allergies - but most of them won't see your question buried here.

I would re-post with a title something like. "Child w/ peanut/nut allergies. Any suggestions/advice for eating in Amsterdam/Bruge?"

I would certainly steer clear of a lot of Indonesian dishes if there's a nut allergy in the family, since peanuts (satay) is such a high-profile component. Since Rijsttaffel a lot of small dishes, it ought theoretically to be possible to avoid nuts, but you can't be sure that other dishes haven't come into contact with the nuts or the oil at some stage.

The Dutch word for nuts in general is "noot" (singular)/"noten" (plural). Some variant names I've found for peanuts in both French and Dutch are:
pistache de terre;
arachide;
cacahouette;
cacaouette;
pinda (peanut butter is pindakaas);
aardnoot, aardnoten;
apenoot;
olienoot.

One suggestion: there is a chain called Nordzee which specialises, as the name suggests, in fish of all kinds, in sandwiches and hot fast food. I like them, and I'm not a great fish fan.

PatrickLondon - thanks for the info! Its interesting that there are so many names for nuts/peanuts. I did get cards that translate the nut allergy question in several languages but Dutch was not available. We did fine in Austria last year but have some comical memories asking for "no Nuss?".
I am hoping that the language difference will be much easier in the Netherlands.
Janis - thanks for the suggestion. I was planning to post again before our trip so that might be a good heading.

If all else fails...there's always good old American food, even in Holland! Such as McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, etc. Holland is famous for tulips and wooden clogs, I'm sure you can find souvenirs like that in Holland.

My friends in Germany always want me to bring home Oreos! They are crazy about those. Just another idea because someone mentioned cookies

oops..sorry, i got confused! The previous message was supposed to be sent to the "gift suggestions" thing. sorry!