Milch Cows and Dairy Farming / Comprising the Breeds, Breeding, and Management, in Health and Disease, of Dairy and Other Stock, the Selection of Milch Cows, with a Full Explanation of Guenon's Method; The Culture of Forage Plants, and the Production of Milk, Butter, and Cheese: Embodying the Most Recent Improvements, and Adapted to Farming in the United States and British Provinces. With a Treatise upon the Dairy Husbandry of Holland; To Which Is Added Horsfall's System of Dairy Management

by Charles Louis Flint

The Manufacture of the different kinds of Dutch Cheese.

—From time immemorial, cheese, as an article of commerce, which has had a large sale, has brought an extensive income to the cattle-breeders and dairymen where its manufacture has been largely carried on, as everywhere in West Friesland, North and South Holland, and along the borders of the crooked Rhine in Utrecht.

Dairymen are not the only ones who enjoy the advantage which grows out of the cheese-trade; but a large number of other people derive considerable profit from it, and support themselves entirely by it. Even the commonalty of the cities, where the weekly markets for the sale of cheese are regularly held, derive a considerable revenue from the small taxes for carriage and market-dues, to which every seller has to submit.

The actual difference between the different kinds of cheese made in Holland is due in part to the form and size, and in part to the mode of making. Every sort has also a name derived from its peculiarities, or from the provinces or sections where it is made. The varieties of cheese best known in the markets in South Holland are the spice cheese, the sweet milk cheese, known also under the name of Gouda cheese, the so-called May cheese, the Council’s cheese, the Jews’ cheese, and the English cheese, made in many places.

Further up in North Holland, the North Dutch sweet milk cheese, as it is commonly called in the province, known in the foreign markets as Edam cheese, is almost exclusively made. A kind of sweet milk cheese is made to a limited extent, called Commissions’ cheese. In West Friesland, Utrecht, and South Holland, but few except sweet milk cheeses are made.

In making cheese, the utmost cleanliness is most carefully observed in all the operations. Whoever is intrusted with this work is required to display the utmost neatness in his whole person, as well as in the dairy-room; and the vats and other utensils are daily scoured, washed with lye, and washed out in water and rinsed. The greatest attention is also paid to the transport of cheese to the weekly markets in the cities; and in whatever way his load is carried, whether by wagon or in little boats, the person intrusted with it is always dressed in the so-called cheese-frock, a large white linen, which is used exclusively for this purpose. At the market itself the cheese is laid on a four-cornered bench, two feet high, and exposed to view in a glittering white linen cloth. But, in order to keep off all dust and impurities, a sail-cloth is raised over the whole, called the cheese-sail; or it is covered with a sail-cloth covering, or sometimes with clean straw. But in other places it is customary to carry the cheese on wagons, in a white linen cloth, and covered with a woollen cover, ready packed for sale at the markets.