Tag: boerenkaas

  • The cheese from the island

    The cheese from the island

    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.

    Wilde Weide
    Wilde Weide

    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.

    Wilde Weide

    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.

    Wilde Weide

    ‘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!

    Wilde Weide
    Making cheese is know how. How the curd feels and looks… it takes experience.
    Wilde Weide
    Jan captures the curd with the metal band and presses it slightly together
    Wilde Weide
    After a few moments, the curds have become cheeses and can be flipped.
    Wilde Weide
    Each cheese (around 13,5 kg) are being transfered to the press.
    Wilde Weide
    Jan adjusts the press and more whey leaves the cheeses.
    Wilde Weide
    Wilde Weide
    Kaas is cheese, and in the cellar the cheeses go into a brine first. Thereafter they mature for around two weeks before they are being aged further by a third party, for instace Fromagerie L’Amuse.
    Wilde Weide
    Wilde Weide
    Wilde Weide
    A break with coffee, farm milk and the Dutch stroopwafel…
    Wilde Weide
    Enjoyed cheese for lunch – as well as the view towards the mainland which seems far away from the island life.

    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.


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