Dutch Cheese Markets
There are five cheese markets operating in the Netherlands. Woerden is a modern working commercial cheese market. Four, Alkmaar, Gouda, Edam and Hoorn, are like traditional merchant cheese markets as operated in the post-medieval period, re-enacted during the summer months for tourists. The shows are today surrounded by stalls selling all things traditional to the Dutch culture, including cheese.
Dutch cheese farmers traditionally brought their cheeses to the market square in town to sell. Teams (vemen) of official guild cheese-porters (kaasdragers), identified by differently coloured straw hats associated with their forwarding company, carried the farmers' cheese on barrows, which typically weighed about 160 kilograms. Buyers then sampled the cheeses and negotiated a price using a ritual system called handjeklap in which buyers and sellers clap each other's hands and shout prices. Once a price is agreed, the porters carry the cheese to the weighing house (Waag), and scale of their company.
Read more about Dutch Cheese Markets: Alkmaar, Edam, Gouda, Hoorn, Woerden
Famous quotes containing the words dutch, cheese and/or markets:
“The French courage proceeds from vanitythe German from phlegmthe Turkish from fanaticism & opiumthe Spanish from pridethe English from coolnessthe Dutch from obstinacythe Russian from insensibilitybut the Italian from anger.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (17881824)
“Apart from cheese and tulips, the main product of the country is advocaat, a drink made from lawyers.”
—Alan Coren (b. 1938)
“When the great markets by the sea shut fast
All that calm Sunday that goes on and on:
When even lovers find their peace at last,
And Earth is but a star, that once had shone.”
—James Elroy Flecker (18841919)