🌍 Western Europe
France, the Netherlands, Britain: the home of hundreds of cheese varieties.
Western Europe is the western part of Europe, with a mild maritime climate, plenty of rain and lush pastures. Western Europe’s mild maritime climate, with plentiful rain and lush pasture all year round, is ideal for cows. No wonder one of the world’s richest cheese cultures took shape here, and Holland and France gave the world well-known dairy cattle breeds.
France is famous for hundreds of cheeses: cave-aged Roquefort made from sheep’s milk, Camembert, Brie, Comté. The Netherlands is known for Gouda and Edam, exported around the world for centuries. Britain makes Cheddar and Stilton, and tea with milk has become a national habit. Many names are protected in the EU as designations of origin: Roquefort, West Country Farmhouse Cheddar, Gouda Holland.
Cheesemaking here moved from monasteries and farms to large factories, but farmhouse raw-milk cheeses are still highly valued.
What it includes
How it connects to milk
🌍 Western Europe → kind of → 🌍 World regions → kind of → 🥛 Milk
Links
- Traditional products
- 🧀 Roquefort, 🧀 Camembert, 🧀 Gouda, 🧀 Cheddar, 🫖 Clotted cream
- Peoples
- 🧑🤝🧑 French, 🧑🤝🧑 Dutch, 🧑🤝🧑 British
- Part of
- 🌍 World regions
- Wine and milk
- 🏛️ Champagne Hillsides, Houses and Cellars
Frequently asked questions
How many types of cheese are there in France?
Hundreds; the exact number depends on how you count the varieties.
Why is there so much cheese in Western Europe?
The mild, wet climate provides pasture almost all year, and cheese is a convenient way to preserve milk.
What does a protected cheese name mean?
The name (Roquefort, for example) may only be used for cheese made in a specific area according to set rules.
What to read next
- 🫖 Clotted cream — Thick "clots" of cream: whole cow's milk is heated with steam or in a water bath and cooled slowly in wide pans. A must for an English cream tea.
- 🧑🤝🧑 French — Romance-speaking people, the main population of France in Western Europe; home to hundreds of cheeses, from Camembert and Brie to Roquefort.
- 🏛️ Champagne Hillsides, Houses and Cellars — The hills, wine houses and chalk cellars of Champagne; a UNESCO heritage site.
- 🧑🤝🧑 British — People of the United Kingdom, on the islands of north-western Europe; famous for cheddar and Stilton cheese and the habit of tea with milk.
- 🧑🤝🧑 Dutch — West Germanic people, the main population of the Netherlands in Western Europe; their Gouda and Edam cheeses are known worldwide.
Similar
🌍 West Africa · 🌍 Southern Africa · 🌍 Himalayas and Tibet · 🌍 Arctic and the North · 🌍 Carpathians · 🌍 Central Europe
Sources
- EUR-Lex — Commission Regulation (EC) No 1107/96 (first EU list of PDO/PGI names)
- EUR-Lex — Commission Regulation (EU) No 1122/2010 (Gouda Holland, PGI)