10 Cheese (Kaas)
One of the top exports of the country and for good reasons. The Dutch are world famous for yellow style cheeses. Gouda (a small city in Zuid-Holland province) is famous for a type of cheese. Edam (close to Amsterdam) is famous for more round style yellow cheese that stays good very long.
Cheese is a prime ingredient of a proper Dutch lunch. Some of the best yellow cheeses are Dutch Old Amsterdam (bit stronger and salty), Beemster, Millner, Leerdam (soft and with holes).
The cheeses have names like jong (young), belegen (not so young anymore, so bit more salty, some milk vaporized), extra belegen (older than belegen), oud (old, the most salty and hard type, not for beginners)
When I was in South-Africa I tried to explain the locals that their cheese tasted like plastic, it was a factory made cheese for bulk production. The secretary did not believe me. At the end of my term there, I bought a piece of Dutch Old Amsterdam and put little flags in it and handed it out to the people I worked with.
After having a piece she told me:"I now understand what you meant."
While looking for a picture i just found that the Dutch Astronaut Andre Kuipers took Old Amsterdam into space