Why Does Dutch Cheese Have a Plastic Rind (and French Cheese Doesn’t)
Can you actually eat the rind of cheese? What is it made of? And why does Dutch cheese have a plastic rind, while French cheese, for example, doesn’t? Luckily, the television program Keuringsdienst van Waarde tackles these kinds of questions and comes up with the answer.
That shiny layer on the outside of your piece of Beemster or Gouda cheese—is it edible? Better not, says the cheesemonger whom Keuringsdienst van Waarde visits. That layer is simply made of plastic. You can eat the rinds of foreign cheeses just fine, and they taste perfectly good. ‘That plastic layer protects the cheese against mold,’ cheese expert Betty Koster explains to the editor. ‘I used to have to brush the mold off the cheese with a wire brush in my grandfather’s cheese shop.’ A plastic layer protects Dutch cheese against that mold.
Plastic layer
So the shiny layer on the outside of your cheese is simply a layer of plastic. It is sponged on as a liquid layer once the cheese is ready, and after a while it hardens. You can simply pull the rind off; it is that elastic plastic you know from a block of supermarket cheese.
Forbidden
One of the reporters from Keuringsdienst travels to France to take a look at the cheese there. Cheese similar to that from the Dutch cheese factory, but… without plastic. Why not? It is forbidden in France, the cheesemonger explains. And in the Netherlands, it is actually mandatory. Clear enough: you can eat French cheese rinds if you like them. And you can cut Dutch rinds off your cheese, because they are simply plastic.
