Every year, 650 million kilos of Gouda cheese is produced in the Netherlands. Most of it is produced industrially, using pasteurized milk, but there are 280 farmers across the country still making raw-milk boerenkaas, or farmer's cheese. And there are only two farms that take their cheese to the next level, making Boeren Goudse Oplegkaas, or aged artisanal Gouda, a special type of raw-milk farmhouse cheese that must weigh at least 20 kilograms, must age at least two years, and can be made only in the summer with cattle grazing in the Green Heart region, between the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Utrecht.
We met with cheesemaker Marije Van der Poel, who lives on an island in the village of Rijpwetering in South Holland with her husband, Hugo, and their three children and makes 15 wheels of aged artisanal Gouda every day at the back of their house.
