Festivals: cheeses that mark them

Religious festivals

Christmas and Easter, Diwali and Durga Puja, Shavuot, Ramadan and Eid each have cheeses of their own. Vacherin Mont d'Or, a soft cheese bound in a strip of spruce bark and made only in the colder months, is baked in its box at Christmas in France and Switzerland. In Bengal, Durga Puja and Diwali are seasons for sandesh and rasgulla, bought by the box. Shavuot tables carry cheesecake and blintzes, and Ramadan nights bring kunafa.

Cheese fairs and markets

In Alkmaar, in the Netherlands, carriers in white uniforms and coloured straw hats run wheels of Gouda and Edam on wooden barrows across the square on Friday mornings through spring and summer, a market held for centuries. Gouda, Edam and Woerden keep similar markets. Bra, in Piedmont, hosts Cheese, a large Slow Food fair held every two years. In France, towns such as Livarot and Rocamadour hold cheese fairs each year.

Contests and games

At Cooper's Hill near Gloucester, runners chase a round of Double Gloucester down a slope so steep that most of them tumble, on the late May bank holiday. In parts of central Italy, players bowl wheels of pecorino along country roads in a game called the ruzzola. Cheese competitions such as the World Cheese Awards and national shows judge thousands of entries a year and give small dairies a stage of their own.

Worth knowing

• Vacherin Mont d'Or: Christmas cheese bound in spruce
• Stilton: Christmas blue with port
• Gouda: Carried across the square in Alkmaar
• Double Gloucester: The wheel chased down Cooper's Hill
• Sandesh: Durga Puja and Diwali sweet
• Paskha: Easter dessert of tvorog
• Cheese, Bra: Slow Food cheese fair held every two years

Sources and further reading

• Dutch cheese markets on Wikipedia
• Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake, Wikipedia
• Vacherin Mont d'Or, Wikipedia