The town of Gouda became a central cheese market in the seventeenth century, and the first weighing rights were granted in 1668. Farmers and traders were obliged to weigh their cheeses here and taxes were imposed. Records from that time show that at least a million kilos of farmstead cheese were traded that year. In the northern parts of the Netherlands, dairy cooperatives took over cheese production from individual farmers in the late 1800s. Fortunately, the Gouda cheesemakers resisted this trend, and traditional farmstead cheesemaking has persisted till today. Some 300 farmers in The Netherlands, most of them in the Gouda region, still produce raw milk farmstead cheese (called boerenkaas). Their numbers are shrinking due to the expansion of urban areas, increased production costs, hygiene restrictions and the abundance of cheap pasteurized imitations. Boeren-Goudse Oplegkaas, as Aged Artisan Gouda is called in Dutch, is made from raw milk only during the summer season, when cows are grazed on the open pastures of the peat meadows or polders of the Green Hart region, between the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht. Boeren-Goudse Oplegkaas cheeses must age for at least two years but can age up to four years (opleg means 'aged' in Dutch). Like all Gouda, Boeren-Goudse Oplegkaas is a washed-curd cheese. Washing the curd removes part of the lactose, which reduces the possibility that acidity and bitterness build up in the aged forms. The cheesemaking starts with the warm milk of the morning's milking, which is mixed with a starter culture made on the farm. Authentic Boeren-Goudse Oplegkaas is peerless in taste, with a sweet mild flavor that blooms in the mouth, a well-structured aftertaste with a light acidity and the warm caramel taste that characterizes most Gouda. Its dense curd remains creamy and full even after it has been stored three or four years on wooden shelves.

The Presidium
Gouda is too often a banal cheese, its familiar thickly waxcoated forms available on supermarket shelves around the world. This is the impetus behind this Presidium's work to save the finest quality version of the cheese: Boeren-Goudse Oplegkaas, which is made by three farmers who graze their Fresian-Holstein cattle on the low polder fields surrounding the city of Gouda. The cheesemakers (traditionally farmers' wives) make the cheeses, each weighing over 20 kilograms, in traditional wooden molds lined with natural linen. The crust of this yellow cheese forms naturally with a minimal use of plastic. The producers are currently seeking to phase out the use of substances on the rind that control molds. In the Netherlands, farmstead cheesemakers have depended for centuries on wholesalers who age the cheeses and resell them without citing the name of the producer. Slow Food is working to offer an alternative by organizing a fairer way of commercialization. Producers and Slow Food promote the aged Boeren-Goudse Oplegkaas directly to consumers.

Production area
Green Hart Region, between the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht