The answer is EDAM, four letters. This Dutch cheese has been crossword furniture for about a century, because its letters alternate vowel, consonant, vowel, consonant, which is exactly what a constructor needs in a tight corner. The definition is vague on purpose, so the blank count is doing most of the work.
The cheese built for a long voyage
Edam takes its name from a town in North Holland, and its qualities are the reason Dutch traders could sell it everywhere. It is made from partly skimmed milk, so it carries considerably less fat than most cheeses of its type. Less fat means less of what turns rancid, and a firmer paste that hardens and sharpens with age instead of collapsing.
Then there is the coat. Export wheels are sealed in paraffin wax, red on the ones most people picture, which locks moisture inside and keeps mold and air outside. A sealed wheel is effectively packaged before packaging existed, which is how the cheese ended up in ships’ stores and in ports on the far side of the world. Most cheeses are made to be eaten near where they were made. This one was made to leave.
That history explains a small puzzle of its own: why a cheese nobody would call the most exciting on the board is nevertheless the one everybody has heard of. Availability beat flavor by several centuries.
A category definition is a length puzzle in disguise
The word variety in the wording is a tell. The setter is not checking whether you know cheese; they have an awkward slot to fill and have picked a category with a lot of short members. Treat it accordingly. Skip the definition entirely, collect one or two crossing letters from entries you are sure of, then match against the shortlist for that length.
The identical trick appears as tea variety, lettuce variety, apple variety and onion variety, all for the same structural reason. Knowing the four and five letter members of each of those groups is worth far more than knowing anything about the subject matter.
What fits, length by length
| Letters | Answer | Origin |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | EDAM | Dutch, the standing default |
| 4 | BRIE | French, soft |
| 4 | FETA | Greek, brined |
| 5 | GOUDA | Dutch, semi hard |
| 5 | COLBY | American |
| 6 | ASIAGO | Italian, when the wording hints Italian |
| 6 | CHEVRE | French, when the wording says goat |
| 7 | RICOTTA | Italian, made from whey |
| 9 | ROQUEFORT | French blue, long slots only |
The names that almost never turn up
Three cheeses cover the large majority of four-letter entries, and beyond EDAM, BRIE and FETA the useful additions are COLBY and DERBY at five and CHEVRE at six. Knowing what is missing helps just as much. MASCARPONE and MOZZARELLA each run to ten letters with consonant runs that lock down too much of the surrounding grid, so they stay out of ordinary fill and appear only when a theme demands them.
Setters want short names whose vowels and consonants alternate, and English borrowed a very limited supply of those from European dairies. That scarcity, not any judgement about taste, is why the same handful reappear week after week.
Frequently asked questions
What is the answer to the cheese variety crossword clue?
EDAM, four letters, more often than anything else. BRIE and FETA fill the same four squares, so a single crossing letter decides among them. The wording is deliberately vague because the setter needs a short word with a convenient letter pattern, not a cheese expert.
Why does EDAM appear in crosswords so often?
Its letters alternate vowel and consonant, which lets a constructor drop it into a tight corner without wrecking the entries around it. It also reads as MADE backwards, a gift for cryptic setters. Four-letter food names with that shape are scarce, so the same ones recur constantly.
What made Edam a cheese that could be shipped?
It is made with partly skimmed milk, so it carries less fat than most cheeses and firms up rather than breaking down as it ages. Export wheels are sealed in a coat of red paraffin wax that keeps moisture in and mold out, so the cheese survives long voyages.
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