During every Spring and Summer season, Alkmaar is hosting the weekly cheese market on Fridays from 10:00 to 13:00 on Waagplein. This market is believed to be the most popular cheese market in the world and attracts thousands of visitors each year. It is more than 400 years old and houses around Waagplein has been demolished to increase the size of the plein. Although cheese are not traded in the same manner today, this beautiful tradition gives an insight on how cheese were carried, evaluated, weighed and sold back in the 16th century. As a newcomer into the Netherlands, you first visit all the touristic attractions and then it become the ‘normal’. For me the cheese market will always be special as it was one of the first trips I did with my children when we arrived in the Netherlands. I still enjoy the spectacle and it is also a first on the agenda when family or friends come to visit. It is a wonderful relaxed event where you can soak up the summer sun, enjoy the beautiful city of Alkmaar and taste the local delights and cheeses of the region. There are quite a lot to do and see in Alkmaar, like the cheese museum or a boat trip on the canal.

The event shows a typical day in the the selling and buying of cheese. The fist thing you will notice are the cheese carriers or Kaasdragers with the different colour straw hats, who are accompanied by the Cheese Father. They have different tasks: You have the Tasman, who is responsible for placing the weights onto the cheese scales, the Zetter who is responsible for taking the cheese from storage to the market, the Ingooier who takes the cheese from the market to storage at the end of the day, the Bootelier who is responsible for getting drinks after the market is over, and the Voorman who is the head and often the oldest member of the company.

After the market opens, testers in white lab coats, use a special scoop to take sample cheese from the cheese wheel in terms of feel, smell, and taste. They also make sure the cheese have enough holes or eyes. After a batch is sold it is carried by two men on a wooden barrow to the scales to be weighed. These cheeses can weigh up to 120 kg and the men walk in a specific rhythm in order to carry the weight more easily. The Tasman weighs it in front of the ‘Waagmeester’ to ensure the buyer gets the right amount of cheese. The unsold cheese are carried back to storage.

You can find more interesting facts on https://fullsuitcase.com/alkmaar-cheese-market/

As an artist, you sometimes struggle to find the right ‘material’ or inspiration to work from, but I feel that portraying my everyday life or a peek of my life in The Netherlands, might be interesting to another person not knowing the country and its traditions. My trademark are also my storybook animals and thus combining the two will give my everyday story ‘another’ story’. I thought that this might lead to a series of illustrations depicting an event on another level.

Thus the first illustration shows how the cheese were transported to the markets back in the days. Because The Netherlands have so many water canals that link cities and towns, boats were the obvious choice of transportation. Every Friday morning the cheese famers with their boats, carrying the precious golden cargo, are off to the cheese market in Alkmaar. I usually do my drawings with 0.03 Unipin markers onto 200 gsm Fabriano paper. I have used some line patterns in order to illustrate the movement of the water instead of just ‘shading’ or hatching.

Thus the starting point of my cheese story…

Cheese inspection

the Cheese carriers