Gouda

What is Gouda Cheese?

Gouda takes its name from the city of Gouda in South Holland, where farmers brought their cheeses to the market square to sell. The guild of cheese-porters, each team wearing straw hats of a different colour, hauled the wheels in barrows. A single farm cheese weighed about 16 kg (35 lb). Buyers tasted, then haggled through handjeklap, a ritual in which both sides clap each other's hands and shout prices until one sticks. The cheese we know today had taken shape by the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century.

Making it starts with cultured milk that is curdled. Some whey is drained off and water is added, which makes Gouda a washed-curd cheese and removes lactose, so less lactic acid forms and the cheese tastes sweeter. Curds are about 10% of the mixture. They go into circular moulds for several hours, which is where the shape comes from, then into brine, which flavours both the paste and the rind. After a few days of drying the wheels get a yellow wax or plastic coating so they do not dry out, and then they age.

Dutch cheesemakers sort the result into six grades: young at 4 weeks, young matured at 8 to 10 weeks, matured at 16 to 18 weeks, extra matured at 7 to 9 months, old at 10 to 12 months, and very old at 12 to 21 months. Young factory Gouda has been described as lightly fudgy with nuts and very mild. Farmhouse wheels carry a fruity tang and a sweet finish, and past two years they can turn almost butterscotch.

The texture is solid and springy. Young cheese is smooth and creamy, pale ivory to light yellow. With time the colour deepens to gold, the paste turns firmer and more crumbly, and small crystals appear that give it a slight crunch. Moisture runs 25 to 46%, fat 21 to 49% by weight, salt 0.9 to 2.4%. Six compounds carry most of the flavour and aroma: diacetyl, 2-methylbutanal, 3-methylbutanal, methional, ethyl butyrate and acetic acid.

In the Netherlands, Gouda is cut into cubes and eaten as a snack with Dutch mustard, or with beer in a bruin café. Older wheels sometimes get a topping of sugar or apple butter. Most Dutch Gouda is now made industrially, though around 300 farmers still produce boerenkaas from unpasteurised milk in the older way. The name Gouda itself is generic and used worldwide, but Boerenkaas, Noord-Hollandse Gouda and Gouda Holland are protected in the EU and must be made in the Netherlands from Dutch cows' milk.