Top 1 from a Dutch cheese journey
The boat trip from the mainland to the island is fast. Just a few minutes. You can easily see across the water. And yet it feels like another world coming to the island.
A sign on the house welcomes us: De Eenzaamheid means Loneliness. We have arrived at the house and farm dairy of Jan and Roos van Schie. The island is in a lake in the Zwanburger Polder, south west of Amsterdam. It covers 1 square km / 247 acres and their neighbors are a farmer and a windmill. We are 60 cm / nearly 2 ft below sea level. The old sea bed contains sea clay which makes the milk special.
Organic and raw milk
Jan and Roos took over the farm in 1984 and are the fifth generation of farmers. Today, they have 42 cows and make 7 cheeses a day in the small dairy. The cheeses are organic raw milk cheeses under the brand Wilde Weide (which means Wild Meadow). They share the brand with another local farmstead dairy.
You can buy Wilde Weide in Holland but also in the US and at Borough Market in London.
‘Boerenkass’ versus ‘kaas van Boeren’
Wilde Weide is a ‘boerenkaas’ which translates to ‘farmhouse cheese’. This refers to a raw milk cheese produced on the farm and which is heated to no more than 35°C / 95°F. When you talk about ‘kaas van Boeren’ or ‘kaas van de boerderij’ (cheese from the farm), you talk about a cheese made with pasteurized or thermized milk.
Let’s take a look at the dairy!
This was my last story (for the moment) from an unforgettable cheese journey to the Netherlands.
More cheese journey?
You can read the other parts of my story here:
Beemster (a cheese area and cheese brand)
A morning at Alkmaar cheese market
Remeker – a farmstead dairy with a different mindset than most others
Additional top 10 moments from the trip
And you can read more about Cheese Journeys who planned this trip.