Before being sold, Edam cheese is usually pressed into a ball and coated with a layer of red wax, a process inspiring its French nickname tete de mart, meaning dead man’s head, the idea being that the wax-coated ball of cheese resembles the hooded head of an executed prisoner. Edam, however, is its real name, one that it acquired from the town in Holland where it was invented. The town, in turn, derives its name from its being founded near a dam on the river Ye: Ye dam became Edam just as Amstel dam and Rotte dam became Amsterdam and Rotterdam. As a cheese, Edam was first referred to in English in the early nineteenth century.