To kick day 4 off, we made our way to the train station and were whisked away to Zaandijk Zaanse Schans, a neighborhood in the city Zaandam. The village we ended up in was filled with historic buildings and windmills, and our destination was the Cheese Farm “Catharina Hoeve”, run by the Henri Willig company. There, we briefly learned about the cheese production process, including the specific temperature used to heat the milk, as well as the microbial enzymes used to cause curd formation. We also saw the vat of curds and the machine used to cut them up into tiny pieces so that they can be gathered, pressed into a mold, and formed into a standard wheel of cheese. When the milk forms curds, liquid whey is also formed. At the cheese shop, we discovered that Henri Willig’s whey byproducts are turned into beer instead of being wasted. It was interesting to see a little peek behind the scenes, but I do wish we learned about the mass-manufacturing of cheese in more detail.
After our tour, we had the chance to wander the paths of Zaanse Schans and finally see some of the iconic windmills that Holland is so famous for! Although I wasn’t able to go inside any of them and look at the inner mechanisms, I’m glad that I got to see them at all, especially considering that I wouldn’t have seen either of the remaining two windmills in Amsterdam.
Our next stop was the Zuiderzeemuseum, a museum dedicated to the culture and maritime history of the former Zuiderzee (“southern sea”) region. There we saw snippets of what life would have looked like in the village back then, including ropemaking, net weaving, and smoking fish. The smoked mackerel was absolutely delicious! We also looked at the insides of some of the houses and discovered how small yet efficient they were. The shingles of the houses’ roofs were designed such that rainwater would run down into a barrel, and there was a gutter that could be tipped facing into/out of the house to divert the rainwater between the indoor and outdoor barrels, depending on the family’s needs at the time.
Notes on Sustainability
Since the Netherlands are so far below sea level, they had to put extra effort into reclaiming land. Today we saw many dykes surrounding farmland and houses alike, and I’ve begun to see just how important water management has been for sustaining human civilization in the Netherlands.
Het was leuk! See you tomorrow!