Origin: | The Netherlands
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Type: | Pasteurised cow’s milk; semi-hard texture
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Fat content: | 45%
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History: | Leerdammer is produced in Schoonrewoerd in the Municipality of Leer dam, the city that gave Leerdammer its name. The cheese is produced exclusively by le Group Bel and the name Leerdammer is a registered trade mark of Bel Leerdammer B.V. Generic Leerdammer is made all over the Netherlands and in other countries and sold as Maasdam cheese. Leerdammer was developed by Cees Boterkooper (who owned a small dairy in Schoonrewoerd since 1914) and Bastiaan Baars (who owned a cheese shop in a nearby village. Baars and Boterkooper met in 1970 and agreed to work together. They worked on developing a cheese that would compete with Gouda and Edam and came up with a cheese which is similar to Emmental in appearance and flavour.
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Characteristics: | Creamy white texture. Similar in flavour and appearance to Emmental, but is rounder in taste, with a sweet, nutty flavour that becomes more pronounced with age, and is softer than Emmental due to a higher moisture content. Like Emmental It has a proliferation of round holes and was originally marketed with the slogan “the taste is round the holes”
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Related Cheeses | French Emmental, Swiss Emmental, Gouda
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Appropriate Wines | Light, fruity reds, such as Beaujolais or any Cotes-du-Rhone, light fruity whites such as Muscadet
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Bottom line | Goes nicely with a ham sandwich, but is a mere imitation of the excellent French and Swiss Emmental, though the Dutch cheese industry would like you to believe that these are original Dutch cheeses. |
