How Dutch Gouda Is Made At A 100-Year-Old Family Farm

[The Lawspeaker]

Every year, 650 million kilos of Gouda cheese is produced in the Netherlands. Most of it is produced industrially, using pasteurized milk, but there are 280 farmers across the country still making raw-milk boerenkaas, or farmer's cheese. And there are only two farms that take their cheese to the next level, making Boeren Goudse Oplegkaas, or aged artisanal Gouda, a special type of raw-milk farmhouse cheese that must weigh at least 20 kilograms, must age at least two years, and can be made only in the summer with cattle grazing in the Green Heart region, between the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. We met with cheesemaker Marije Van der Poel, who lives on an island in the village of Rijpwetering in South Holland with her husband, Hugo, and their three children and makes 15 wheels of aged artisanal Gouda every day at the back of their house.

[Benyzero]

Gouda is the best cheese bru

[Manuel]

Aged Gouda tastes so good and I have boundless respect for artisans of this sort.

[KirillMazur]

I know this cheese - I really like it, it could be freely bought here in the 90s-00s, as far as I remember, it had a spherical (or round) form factor. Another popular cheese was Edam (or Edamer) from Dutch cheeses, also in the shape of a ball.

[The Lawspeaker]

Guess what I just had on my bread ? That's right. As for Edam: it's also used in the Philippines during Christmas with ham and pandesal during the Noche Buena.