{{short description|Danish farmer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}} {{Infobox person | name = Hanne Nielsen | image = Hanne Nielsen.png | birth_date = 11 September 1829 | birth_place = | death_date = {{death date and age|1903|6|15|1829|9|11|df=y}} | death_place = | other_names = | occupation = Butter and cheese maker | years_active = | known_for = | notable_works = }} '''Johanne (Hanne) Ane Margrethe Nielsen''' (née Jacobsdatter, 11 September 1829 – 15 June 1903)<ref name="DBL">{{cite web |last1=Bjørn |first1=Claus |title=Hanne Nielsen |url=https://biografiskleksikon.lex.dk/Hanne_Nielsen |website=Dansk Biografisk Leksikon |date=18 July 2011 |access-date=2 August 2021}}</ref> was a Danish farmer who may have invented Havarti cheese. In the 1800s, Nielsen traveled around Europe to learn about cheesemaking. Her farm was named Havarthigaard and was close to Copenhagen. After returning from her travels, she developed the technique to create a new type of cheese. She was also a teacher, writer, and an accountant for the profit made from her butter and cheese. Her butter and cheese were served to royal families, including a cheese made with cumin that was served to King Christian IX of Denmark. She was denied membership of the Royal Danish Agricultural Society although she had sought the assistance of dairy scientist Thomas Segelcke. Despite being skeptical of female accountants, Segelcke included her accounting method in a book he published.

==Early life== Nielsen was born on a farm in Søllerød near Copenhagen on 11 September 1829,<ref name=DBL /> close to the farm where she lived in 1902. She married Hans Nielsen when she was 19 years old and they lived in a home named Havarthigaard. Nielsen and her husband sold milk from their cows, but she was unhappy with the profit from the milk so she sold it as butter and cheese.<ref name="Queen"/> Although Nielsen's attempts at selling butter and milk were successful from the beginning, she was not happy with the final products and decided to educate herself on better methods.<ref name="Hazard1881"/> Other farmers' wives were able to produce similar butter and cheese, but Nielsen wanted hers to be better than theirs. She studied subjects relating to dairy produce and traveled to Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and France, among others, to learn how to obtain better results.<ref name="Queen"/> Nielsen learned how to make cheddar cheese with Joseph Harding in England, brie and Roquefort in France, and Gouda cheese along with Edam cheese in the Netherlands.<ref name="Hazard1881"/>

==Career== Nielsen opened a dairy school on her farm where she taught a total of around 1,000 students from 1866 to 1903, many of them from Sweden.<ref name="Agrarian">{{cite book|author=Lena Sommestad|title=Agrarian Women, the Gender of Dairy Work, and the Two-Breadwinner Model in the Swedish Welfare State|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1EOEDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT61|date=18 January 2019|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-429-65627-9|page=61}}</ref> In September 1902, it was reported that all of the then-current dairy instructors in Denmark had received at least part of their training from her.<ref name="Queen">{{cite news |date=10 September 1902 |title=Denmark's Dairy Queen |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/81605049/mower-county-transcript/ |work=Mower County Transcript |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> thumb|Havarti students at Havarthigaard farm in 1875 (Hanne Nielsen is at right behind her granddaughter) She wrote press articles, held lectures, and published an 1886 Swedish manual on making butter. Nielsen won multiple prizes from the Royal Danish Agricultural Society, but the society did not allow her to become a member as they did not think it would be acceptable to have a woman at their meetings.<ref name="Agrarian"/> She asked dairy scientist {{ill|Thomas Riise Segelcke|da}} to let her become a member of the Agricultural Society, but he did not help her although he was a friend and visited her farm frequently. Segelcke wrote a letter to Nielsen that said, "Mrs. Hanne Nielsen, Prof. Jorgensen continues to oppose women's participation in the Agricultural Society, so there is no point in your pursuing this matter. Please be so kind as not to intrude. Yours truly, Th. Segelcke". Despite her name appearing on a membership list of the Agricultural Society from 1870 to 1871, there is no documentation of Nielsen participating in a meeting.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Fink |first=Deborah |date=2009 |title="Not to Intrude": A Danish Perspective on Gender and Class in Nineteenth-Century Dairying |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40607529 |journal=Agricultural History |volume=83 |issue=4 |pages=447 and 473 |doi=10.3098/ah.2009.83.4.446 |jstor=40607529 |pmid=19860023 |access-date=17 July 2021|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Nielsen was responsible for the keeping the farm accounts, which was common in Denmark.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ehes.org/wp/EHES_115.pdf |title='Rational' Farmers and the Emergence of Modern Accounting in Danish Dairying |last1=Lampe |first1=Markus |last2=Sharp |first2=Paul |date=October 2017 |publisher=European Historical Economics Society |page=34 |access-date=17 July 2021}}</ref> Segelcke was skeptical of accounting completed by women, but he based a book on Nielsen's accounting system that included a section about cheese.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Markus Lampe|author2=Paul Sharp|title=A Land of Milk and Butter: How Elites Created the Modern Danish Dairy Industry|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7CCMDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA232|date=12 April 2019|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-54964-4|page=232}}</ref>

Nielsen made goat milk into cheese along with milk from 14 cows.<ref name="Hazard1881"/><ref name="Shift"/> The 1881 book ''The Channel Islands: Their People and Their Cattle'' said that "the products have become famous, and are found on the table of the king". Her butter and milk was served to royal families in Denmark.<ref name="Hazard1881">{{cite book|author=Willis Pope Hazard|title=The Channel Islands: Their People and Their Cattle|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iDoSAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA11-PA142|year=1881|publisher=Hart|pages=142–143}}</ref> She created a Tilsit cheese with cumin for King Christian IX of Denmark.<ref name="Shift">{{cite journal |last=Burchardt |first=Jørgen |date=March 2019 |title=A 150-Year Shift In Cheese Tastes: Social, Economic And Cultural Dimensions Of Danish Cheeses |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332079858 |journal=Conference: Food, Heritage and Community. An Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference. A Food and Drink in the 21st Century Project |access-date=17 July 2021 |via=ResearchGate}}</ref> She was known by people in Scandinavian countries and by people that had an interest in dairy work within Europe.<ref name="Queen"/> Due to her success, Nielsen was paid more than most other farm workers.<ref name="Shift"/>

===Legacy=== thumb|Portrait of Hanne Nielsen by unknown artist from the collection of Rudersdal Museum, ''Mothsgården''. The Rudersdal museums in Denmark have a permanent exhibition concerning Nielsen and her cheesemaking development. The exhibits include her hand-cranked butter churn which she used until steam-powered centrifuges were available.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Rudersdal Museer|url=https://www.facebook.com/rudersdalmuseer/posts/10156722287375899|access-date=18 July 2021|website=www.facebook.com|language=en}}</ref>

===Havarti cheese=== {{See also|Havarti}} Havarti was previously called "Danish Tilsiter" after the German cheese type tilsiter.<ref name="Shift"/> Danish production began in 1921.<ref name="FVS">{{cite web |title=Varespecifikation Havarti |url=https://www.foedevarestyrelsen.dk/SiteCollectionDocuments/Kemi%20og%20foedevarekvalitet/Varestandarder-handelsnormer-kvalitet/Varespecifikation%20Havarti.pdf |website=Foedevarestyrelsen |access-date=2 August 2021 |archive-date=1 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210801204908/https://www.foedevarestyrelsen.dk/SiteCollectionDocuments/Kemi%20og%20foedevarekvalitet/Varestandarder-handelsnormer-kvalitet/Varespecifikation%20Havarti.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> In 1952, the cheese was named Havarti, after Havartigården near Holte, where the Danish cheese pioneer Hanne Nielsen worked in the 1800s.<ref name="KD">{{cite news |last1=Høeg Lammers |first1=Anders |title=Klassiske danske oste stammer fra udlandet |url=https://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/bagsiden/klassiske-danske-oste-stammer-fra-udlandet |access-date=2 August 2021 |work=Kristeligt Dagblad |date=4 May 2020}}</ref> Among other cheeses, Nielsen created a Tilsit cheese with cumin for King Christian IX of Denmark.<ref name="Shift" />

Some sources such as ''The Oxford Companion to Cheese'' say that Nielsen invented Havarti cheese,<ref>{{cite book|author=Catherine W. Donnelly|title=The Oxford Companion to Cheese|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qRg1DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA346|year=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-933088-1|page=346}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Martin Hintz|author2=Pam Percy|title=Wisconsin Cheese: A Cookbook and Guide to the Cheeses of Wisconsin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=waPVq7au8NsC&pg=PA229|date=26 February 2008|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-7627-5196-9|page=229}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cheesemarketnews.com/articlearch/cheese/29dec17.html |title=Cheese of the Month - December 2017 |last=Archwamety |first=Rena |date=December 2017 |website=Cheese Market News |access-date=1 August 2021}}</ref> while the ''Dansk Biografisk Leksikon'' states that the current Havarti is not based on her cheesemaking.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://biografiskleksikon.lex.dk/Hanne_Nielsen |title=Hanne Nielsen |website=Dansk Biografisk Leksikon |date=18 July 2011 |access-date=1 August 2021}}</ref>

Havarti cheese has a mild taste and is somewhat acidic. The cheese is now made in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. Denmark exports Havarti cheese to various countries. It is semi-hard with small holes.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Visual Food Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TOG-ItIHp_kC&pg=PA622|year=1996|publisher=Québec Amerique|isbn=978-2-7644-0898-8|page=622}}</ref>

== References == {{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nielsen, Hanne}} Category:19th-century Danish inventors Category:1829 births Category:1903 deaths Category:19th-century Danish educators Category:19th-century Danish women educators Category:19th-century Danish businesspeople Category:Danish businesspeople in the dairy industry Category:19th-century Danish businesswomen Category:19th-century Danish farmers Category:19th-century Danish women farmers Category:Cheesemakers Category:People from Rudersdal Municipality Category:19th-century women inventors Category:20th-century Danish women farmers Category:20th-century Danish farmers