"The cheese is named after the city of Gouda not because it was produced in or around that city, but because it was traded there.^[4] In the Middle Ages, Dutch cities could obtain certain feudal rights which gave them primacy or a total monopoly on certain goods. Within the County of Holland, Gouda acquired market rights on cheese, the sole right to have a market in which the county's farmers could sell their cheese. All the cheeses would be taken to the market square in Gouda to be sold. Teams consisting of the guild of cheese-porters, identified by differently colored straw hats, carried the farmers' cheeses on barrows, which typically weighed about 16 kg. Buyers then sampled the cheeses and negotiated a price using a ritual system called handjeklap in which buyers and sellers clap each other's hands and shout prices. Once a price was agreed upon, the porters would carry the cheese to the weighing house and complete the sale.<sup>[5]"

Gouda accounts for roughly half of all global cheese consumption, and according to wiki it's pretty fuckin' whimsical.</sup>