A Gouda Time

 Thursday, September 17

We pulled into Dordrecht around 7am this morning. This was an early day as we needed to be ready to board a ferry this morning at 7:45am. It is a cloudy day and in the low 60’s. 

The short ferry ride took us to Kinderdijk which translates to child dike. There are different opinions as to why the town is named this. Many versions revolve around a terrible flood in the 14th century. It is said that a cradle with a baby was swept away by the raging waters and a cat jumped into the cradle and kept the cradle rocking back and forth to prevent the water from spilling in and drowning the baby. The cat kept this up until the baby was rescued. 

Our tour guide was a woman named Janet and she is a resident of Kinderdijk. She was raised here and her grandfather was a miller. A miller is the person who runs the windmill and most often lives there with their family. If the windmill is running, the miller has to be there. She was quite informative as we toured one of the 16 windmills in this area. All of them are very old and don’t really run much but they keep them all in working condition in case the electricity goes out and the new technology used can’t operate. It is very important to have a back up plan because the purpose is to pump the water constantly so the dikes hold and there is just enough water to prevent the land from sinking. The town is built on peat and if too much water is pumped, the peat will shrink and things will sink. 

The windmill they have open for touring is working so it gave us a feel for what it would have been like to live in a windmill. First of all you would have to like to climb stairs because the rooms are on different levels and small. The bathrooms are outside as well as the cooking house. 

In his later years, Janet’s grandfather lost his eyesight due to glaucoma. He didn’t want to move and being a miller was all he had known so his wife became his eyes. She would help him direct the windmill and although blind, would crawl up the blades to attach the canvas by feel. 

After the windmills our group boarded a bus to travel into the countryside. It is very lush green but because of the peat soil, no crops are grown besides grass for the cows. There are few beef cows because it is not as economical as having dairy cows so dairy cows are what we mostly saw. We also saw an abundance of sheep and storks. They do not like swans because swans eat a lot of grass that should have been for cows. 

Our next stop was to Booij (pronounced boy) Gouda Farm. This family has been making Gouda and other cheeses for 300 years. Evelyn showed us around the farm where we met a few of their 160 or so dairy cows and then explained their process of making award winning Gouda. Cheese making begins at 6am right after their cows are milked for the first time. They do not pasteurize their milk but just warm it. Then the curds are separated from the whey, Bacteria is added to the curds and then they are rinsed and packed into wheels of various sizes. The wheels are aged in brine/whey combination and the outside is painted with a product called cheese coating wihich protects the cheese but also allows it to age. The cheese wheels are aged at least 3 weeks or longer. 

The best part was that we got to taste a variety of their cheeses. We did buy a few cheese wedges because it was vacuumed packed and does not need to be refrigerated and is good for 8 weeks. A really Gouda time!

After a short bus ride a leisurely walk through the small town of Gorinchem we boarded back on our ship in time for lunch. You do not go hungry on river cruises!