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Food

Our Plain Old Cheese Is the Leading Lady in International Gouda Fraud

Republican politician Paul Ryan recently brandished a wedge of smoked Gouda while defending Wisconsin's right to produce it. This is a considerable amount of controversy over what the average Dutch person would probably describe as “ordinary cheese.”
Photos by the author.

During the year that I lived in Tokyo, I was often asked where I was from–but rather than clearing up my foreign appearance, my answer usually led to more confusion.

Gouda? Was I born in a cheese?

For people who are not from the Netherlands, the name of the place refers to something they know only from the cheese shelves. But the Gouda I tasted in Japan barely resembled the quintessentially Dutch cheese I loved to eat back home: stale, sweaty slices, all but merged with the cellophane they were individually wrapped in, and giving off a distinctly socky smell–a bit like the cheddar sitting on McDonald's burgers. Not the kind of cheese that can satisfy a real cheesehead, and moreover an insult to me as a Dutchwoman: This cheese didn't deserve to be called Gouda.

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Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought so. Since 2010, the name "Gouda Holland" has been protected by the EU with a Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), to ensure product quality and to prevent our culinary heritage from being copied. Practically speaking, this means that not just anyone can call their cheese Gouda Holland. To us Dutch, this measure may seem brazenly obvious, but Gouda is currently the leading lady in a political play of international proportions.

American cheesemakers are pissed. As a part of a new trade pact, the EU wants to prohibit other countries from giving foods names that are traditionally associated with a place or region in Europe unless they were produced there. They demand that the US comes up with new names for popular cheeses such as Gouda, Parmesan, and feta that are produced on American soil. But the US insists that the names are commonplace.

"This is my favorite cheese," Rep. Paul Ryan said during a House Committee on Ways and Means hearing on trade in January, brandishing a wedge of smoked Gouda. "For generations, we've been making Gouda in Wisconsin. And for generations to come, we're going to keep making Gouda in Wisconsin. And feta, and cheddar, and everything else," the Republican Congressman said. Trade policy expert for the National Milk Producers Federation and the US Dairy Export Shawna Morris called the demand "a blatant barrier to trade here that is designed to hinder competition." The US wants the EU to release the names of traditional specialities, so that they can continue to name its cheese after a place in South Holland, while the product has no affinity whatsoever with the country in which it originated.

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This is a considerable amount of controversy over what the average Dutch person would probably describe as "ordinary cheese." Moreover, the EU ban is quite logical, because Gouda is only made in Gouda, right? Nope: The characteristic wheels originate from the province of South Holland, but the cheese got its name from the fact that it was traded exclusively on the market of Gouda during the Middle Ages. Nowadays, the cheese is produced throughout the country. But how can a cheese that doesn't necessarily come from one region and comes in so many variations—old, mature, goat, with pesto, chili, grass-fed, smoked—be called by the one name? Even though I was born there, I'm pretty clueless as to what makes a cheese Gouda. And why is it that the cheese we here in Holland deem fit for grilled cheese and not much else such a big deal abroad?

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Loek de Loor, owner of fromagerie De Kaaskamer, has been in the business for 35 years, and has the answers to all my cheese questions. "The name Gouda is about the shape and the form of the cheese, period," he says, referring to the large, yellow wheels. "Whether it's made with pasteurized or raw milk, it's all Gouda cheese."

Most Gouda isn't even made in the Netherlands—according to De Volkskrant, five in six Gouda cheeses are counterfeit, and much of the Gouda in Dutch supermarkets has been made abroad. The letters "NL" on the crust prove to be little help in identifying the product—this simply means that the cheese was packaged in the Netherlands. This Gouda fraud is precisely the reason for the creation of the quality mark back in 2010. A cheese may call itself "Gouda Holland" when "it was made of Dutch milk, processed in a plant in the Netherlands and was aged on Dutch soil for at least four weeks," according to the campaign video. Plants? Wait a minute. We're getting all riled up about plain old factory cheese? This is starting to smell like a marketing tale spun by some clever advertisers—and why should a Dutch factory cheese be superior to an American one?

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But according to de Loor, Dutch factory Gouda

does

taste better, and it's the milk that makes the difference: "Our country has the perfect soil composition for the tastiest milk, particularly in the Beemster region," he says. "You can play all sorts of tricks to ensure that your cows produce as much milk as possible, but it comes at the expense of the quality. If you feed your cows only the best grass, it will make for a much richer flavor."

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We owe our glittering cheese reputation to the traditional Boerenkaas, which is made from raw milk and is still largely handmade. The tastiest of these farmhouse cheeses are made in the areas of Stolwijk, Alphen and, indeed, Gouda. "We have a very rich tradition," de Loor says proudly. "The recipe has been passed down for centuries from father to son." But according to the fromager, the average Dutchman hardly knows how to appreciate good Dutch cheese. "Those blocks of cheese that you buy in the supermarket for a few euros a kilo, it's enough to make you weep," he says. "I find it outrageous. Cheese should be bought at a respectable fromagerie—just like you wouldn't buy quality shoes at a department store."

The romantic image of Dutch Gouda also has to do with the fact that we're not exporting our best cheeses, according to Pauline Siebers of Amsterdam Cheese Company, a cheese shop that mainly caters to tourists. "I think that we are secretly keeping the best cheeses for ourselves," she says, "The French don't export their best wine either; that's why you can drink a chateau migraine in a pub in Amsterdam, while you can buy a better bottle for less money in a French supermarket." That's why tourist stock up when they come to the Netherlands. "It just tastes better here."

Siebers thinks we should continue to play to our strengths. "I tasted an Australian cheddar once," she tells me. "It tasted horrible, nothing like the real thing." She thinks the "Gouda Holland" label is a smart move on the EU's part, but according to de Loor it's too little, too late. In any case, cheese aficionados from all over the world still come to the Netherlands for the gold stuff. "I cannot get this cheese in the US," a tourist in Amsterdam Cheese Company says as he juggles several pieces of 24-month-matured Gouda at the counter—and he's right.

They can imitate our cheese everywhere and print the name of my place of birth on the crust—but the best flavor is ours.