By Isla Quinn
The cheese carriers wear white. Everything else about them is colour: four teams, four hat colours, and a rule that if a cheese rolls off the barrow, a rival shouts.
Alkmaar sits in North Holland.
The cheese scale, 1365
The cheese market is the draw. The Alkmaar tourist office says the town had a cheese scale as early as 1365. The Dutch intangible heritage inventory says the first ordinance for cheese carriers was issued on 17 June 1593, and the tourist office gives the same date for the Cheese Carriers’ Guild. The guild, it says, has more than 400 years of continuous operation. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the market grew to as many as four cheese markets a week, running until one in the morning, and houses were sometimes demolished to make room.
The weigh house
The market sits in front of the Waag, the weigh house, on the Waagplein.
The guild
The heritage inventory describes the carriers’ hierarchy. The guild is led by the kaasvader, the cheese father, who wears an orange hat and carries a silver-mounted cane. There are four forwarding companies, identified by the colours red, yellow, green and blue, and each is headed by an overman. Other roles include the tasman, the eldest carrier who handles the purse, the beul, who handles fines, and the knecht, a servant. All carriers wear white clothing, coloured straw hats and black shoes. The owl rule is the one about rolling cheese. If one rolls off the berry, the carrying frame, the first carrier of another company who sees it shouts out, and the heritage page records the call as OWL.
Fines paid by latecomers support charitable causes and the annual Kruimelavond celebration. The page says members are active until 67 or beyond, and quotes the saying that one is a cheese carrier until death. It says today’s carriers are volunteers who receive a small contribution towards lost income. The Dutch heritage inventory added the guild in March 2017, under markets and annual festivals.
When it runs
The cheese market is a summer-season market held on Friday mornings. Times and dates change, so check the Alkmaar tourist office before you plan a day around it.
What to look for
Watch the carriers first, then the buyers. Ask which cheeses are traded and which are for show. If you buy cheese in town, ask where it was made and how long it was aged.
We are not naming a dairy or a maker, because we have not sourced one.
Roam first. Shop later.