A cheesy-postcard came this week via Postcrossing.
A quick glimpse at the back of the postcard, I saw the name of the sender and was immediately taken aback. For a while I thought my husband sent me this postcard! *lol* You see, my husband is also named Rob :)
Hoorn, the hometown of Rob (the sender) is an old historic town in Netherlands with about 70,000 residents representing about 80 nationalities. The town of Hoorn is popular to local and foreign tourists alike as, once a week, the whole town transforms into a big touristic market that, on top of selling all things traditional Dutch and the popular Hoorn cheese, showcases the re-enactment of how a cheese market operates back in the Middle Ages for tourists during the summer months. The pictures above are scenes taken from the re-enactment in the middle of the town square. This event draws thousands of tourists every year that a commentary in English was included in the recent years. Oh how fun it would be to see it with my own eyes!
The gentlemen in straw hats are called kaasdragers, or cheese-porters, and they carry the farmer's cheese in stretchers, typically about 160kgs in one go, to the prospective buyers for tasting. Now I can't help but imagine if wine barrels were transported through a stretcher like the Hoorn cheese - they would be rolling all over the place! Going back, if buyers like the taste, they then negotiate the price using the handjeklap, where buyers and sellers clap each other's hands and shout their prices. What a riot it must be!
On to the stamp... it is a commemorative joint-issue of the Dutch and Brazilian postal offices showcasing the Dutch's presence in Brazil. There are six stamps printed in three different thematic pages. The one above features the cashew plant with its cashew nut and fruit, a Brazilian native plant that is widely consumed worldwide today, including Cambodia and the Philippines.
