Farmer Kluijve, who puts on a show of haggling over price with buyers for the enjoyment of tourists, at the weekly cheese market in Gouda, the Netherlands. The small city, where the renowned Dutch cheese is made is built on peat marsh, is subsiding as sea levels rise. — ©2024 The New York Times Company
ON a recent morning in Gouda, a small city in the Netherlands, hundreds of wheels of yellow cheese lay out in rows on the cobblestones of the town square, a backdrop to the city’s weekly cheese market, which dates to the Middle Ages.
Ad van Kluijve, a farmer dressed in blue work shirt, red bandanna, blue cap and wooden clogs, haggled with a buyer over the price of his latest batch of jong belegen, famous for its mild caramel flavour. In the rest of the world, it is one of many cheeses named after the city in which it is traded.
