Cheese helps Edam retain its glorious past

Ida Indawati Khouw, Contributor, Edam, The Netherlands

"Cheese has been a 'gift' for the town of Edam," said Gerro de Boer, "because cheese has made this place widely recognized in the world."

De Boer -- whose family tree has had its roots in Edam since the 1600s -- is referring to the well-known round cheese with red waxy skin which is even far more popular than the town's rich history itself as an important port in the past and one of the oldest towns in the Netherlands.

Located 22 kilometers north of the capital Amsterdam, Edam is known as the export center for the "Dutchman's head", a nickname for the cheese, although the town has its own beauty with extraordinary facades, houses, canals and bridges representing an authentic 17th century town.

"That's the reason why people called it Edam cheese, because it 'comes' from Edam," said de Boer, who is also the chairman of the Edam Cheese Market Foundation.

In contrast with the cheese, Edam is not famous enough to attract tourists, as only 25,000 people visit the town every year, far below the neighboring fishing village of Volendam with a million tourists annually, said Betty Slot-Valk, the manager of the VVV Edam tourist information center.

The history of the semi-hard cheese is still unclear but locals believe that it all started about 400 years ago when a rich farmer had an over-production of milk.

"Edam was very small, so he couldn't sell all his milk. Then he began to create balls from hardened milk. However, those balls were too heavy for a soccer game," said Cees Hooijberg, a retired cheese seller who always shares the same story with visitors at the annual cheese market.

"After two months, the rich farmer tasted the balls and to his surprise, they tasted fantastic. Then he said 'let's call it Edam cheese', so other farmers came to him to learn to make the cheese."

Soon after the Edammer was discovered, a cheese market was established that opened every Thursday when farmers would scatter their cheese on the ground to find bidders. The market was located at Jan Nieuwenhuyzenplein, a small square near the town center where a cheese weighing house was built in 1778.

A market system was later on set up with the famous traditional clapping negotiation and the unique cheese bearers with their white uniforms and lacquered straw hats.

The tradition has allowed buyers to test the cheese by drilling holes to determine the quality. The procession is then followed by clapping which indicates a negotiation is made -- either the buyer increases the price or the farmer lowers the price. The cheese bearers (always working in pairs) then carry the cheese on barrows to weigh them in the weighing house.

"My great-grandfather used to go to the market to buy cheese before transporting it through the canals to the warehouses, waiting to be exported," said K. Schardam, director of Gestam company which was built by his great-grandfather in 1916. The company now is the only surviving cheese exporter in Edam, out of seven companies previously in the business.

The cheese market only survived until 1922 after which the business was taken over by factories.

Edammer is now considered the second most important product in Dutch cheese varieties with 27 percent of total cheese production after Gouda.

"Edammer is aimed for export because other countries prefer a smaller cheese. The reason is because it takes a longer time to sell a big cheese like Gouda," said Schardam.

"But Edam cheese remains just a name now," he said, referring to the fact that there is no longer any cheese production in the town that only has a population of 7,425 as recorded in December 2000.

Edam cheese is produced in other cities like Gouda, Leiden or Friesland. But cheese still brings luck for business in Edam.

In view of the small number of tourists coming to the town, some local businesspeople revived the cheese market tradition as a tourist attraction 13 years ago. The attraction is staged every Wednesday in July and August to enliven the memory of Kaasstad Edam (the Cheese town of Edam). Their business strategy was a success.

It has been proven that the cheese market has brought in business for three hotels, 12 cafes and restaurants and other small shops in the beautiful town.

"The cheese market attracts about 16,000 tourists every year," said Slot-Valk. She admitted that only by holding cultural events, the little town could gain quite a number of tourists.