Every summer re-enactment of traditional cheese markets are back to the market squares of 5 Dutch cities: Woerden (which is actually a modern working commercial cheese market), Alkmaar, Gouda, Edam, and Hoorn. During this show you will find out how the traditional merchant cheese markets operated in the post-medieval period. These shows are surrounded by stalls selling all kind of things traditional to the Dutch culture, like cheese itself, herring, sugar waffles, clogs, etc.
Dutch cheese farmers traditionally bring their cheeses to the market square in the city to sell. Buyers sample the cheeses and negotiate a price using a ritual called handjeklap in which buyers and sellers clap each other's hands and discuss prices. Once they settle on a price, the porters carry the cheese to the weighing house (or waag in Dutch).
Gouda cheese has been traded on the Goudse kaasmarkt for more than three centuries. These days it is open from mid-June until August every Thursday morning between 10.00 and 12:30.
I specialize in engagement and wedding, family, portraiture, school, and event photography.
Labels: barrow, boerenkazen, buyer, cheese market, farmers, Gouda, Goudse kaasmarkt, handjeklap, herring, market square, marktmeester, negotiation, summer, the Netherlands, Waag, weighing house
