What local dishes should I try in Netherlands, and where should I look for them?

The specification is unusually explicit, and it gives you a way to tell the registered product from the generic. The cheese-milk must be pasteurized at a temperature of at least 72°C for 15 seconds. Only calf rennet may be used. And the maturing rule is the one to remember: Gouda Holland "is only ever matured naturally," and foil maturing is not permitted. Natural rind maturing is slower, loses more moisture and produces the firmer, more crystalline texture of an aged Dutch cheese — so a block that has been ripened in plastic film is not the protected product, whatever the label says about Gouda.

Where to look is a question about institutions rather than restaurants. The Netherlands retails food through weekly town markets, cheese shops and bakeries more than through a restaurant culture, and the market is where you will find the protected cheese alongside the fried-fish stands, the stroopwafel irons and the raw herring the country is genuinely known for eating standing up.

Timing is simple and seasonal, and it runs against expectation. July is the wettest month at De Bilt, averaging 3.4 inches (85.2 millimeters) across 14.8 precipitation days — not what most visitors picture of a northern European summer, and the reason an eating day built around an open-air market wants a covered or housed market held in reserve.

The phrase "foil maturing is not permitted" is doing real work in that specification. Film-ripened cheese is the industry standard precisely because it is cheaper and yields more, and Dutch supermarkets sell a great deal of it under the unprotected name "Gouda," which — unlike "Gouda Holland" — carries no geographical protection at all. Looking for the two-word registered name rather than the one-word generic is the difference between buying the designation and buying a style.

• Market morning — Protected cheese, bread and fried fish in the same place; weekly town markets are the Dutch food institution.
• Standing lunch — Herring and fried-fish stands are built for eating on your feet, not for sitting down.
• Rainy afternoon — With July averaging 14.8 precipitation days, pick a covered or housed market rather than an open-air one.

Protected-name confusion is the main one: the unprotected word "Gouda" is everywhere, and nothing about it guarantees the Dutch-farm milk, calf rennet or natural maturing the PGI requires. On health, the CDC lists a Global Measles travel health notice at Level 1, Practice Usual Precautions, with the Netherlands among the destinations noted for measles outbreaks — worth checking your own vaccination status against before a trip built around crowded markets. And the climate cuts against the romance: a wettest-month July means that an outdoor-market itinerary in high summer is more weather-dependent than most visitors assume.

The Netherlands when-to-visit question in this group gives the month-by-month precipitation and sunshine figures, which is how you pick market days that are likely to be dry.