How Edam cheese drained lakes

Nothing happens in a vacuum and that is true for cheese history. The landscape around the town of Edam in the province of Holland changed in part because of the demand for more land for dairy farming to make cheese, Edam cheese. This video explores some of the impacts that Edam cheese had on the land around the town of Edam.

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Rise of cheddar cheese factories:    • Cheddar’s rise to international fame  
Why is Edam cheese round?:    • Why is Edam cheese round?  

Sources
Argeloo, Marc. Hoe De Edammer De Wereld Veroverde: De Geschiedenis Van Een Rond Kaasje. Hoorn, Netherlands: Uniepers, 2011.
De Mulder, Eduardo F. J., Ben C. De Pater and Joos C. Droogleever Fortuijn. The Netherlands and the Dutch: A Physical and Human Geography. Switzerland: Springer, 2019.
Dijkman, Jessica. Shaping Medieval Markets: The Organisation of Commodity Markets in Holland, C. 1200-C.1450. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2011.
Donnelly, Catherine, ed. The Oxford Companion to Cheese. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Fleischer, Alette. "The Garden Behind the Dyke: Land Reclamation and Dutch Culture in the 17th Century." Icon 11 (2005): 16-32.
Kindstedt, Paul. Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and Its Place in Western Civilisation. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2012.

Images
Netherlands Compared to sea level (public domain)
Noord-Holland en Friesland from Brusselse Atlas by Christian Sgroten, 1573 (public domain)
Old map of the Netherlands from Atlas van Loon, 1664 (public domain)
Edam cheese (Pixabay)

00:00 Introduction
00:25 How did Edam cheese change its landscape?
01:34 What was the land like?
03:43 How did farming change the land?
06:21 How did the land change Edam cheese?
09:48 Thanks for watching!

#edam #cheese #history #cheesehistory