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According to legend, a Middle Eastern herdsman nearly six thousand years ago stored some milk in a sack made from a calf or lamb's stomach (waterproof animal organs then providing the best portable containers for liquid), only to discover later that the milk had separated. Sampling the coagulated curds-what we call fresh cheese-he realized that it was not only tasty but longer lasting than milk. By 2000 B.C.E., fresh cheese was a common food throughout the area, as attested by the discovery in Middle Eastern archeological digs of numerous small cheese molds replete with holes for draining. Later, the Romans discovered that cooking the milk to produce curds, pressing the curds, soaking the cheese in salt, and aging it for several months produced hard cheeses. Pliny the Elder (c. 77 C.E.) described many of the cheeses favored by Roman gourmets, including ones similar to Swiss and blue. While the basics of cheese making remain relatively unchanged from Roman times, there are now more than two thousand varieties around the globe.
Cheese is created when the solid portion of the milk of a few cloven-hoofed, cud-chewing animals is separated from a liquid called whey. Goat and sheep cheeses are most prevalent in the Middle East and Mediterranean. (When the Bible spoke of "a land flowing with milk and honey," it was referring to goat's milk.) The amazing aspect of cheese making is how small differences in the procedure-including the kind of milk, the amount of salt and other flavorings added, the temperature at which the milk is heated, the pressing, and the length of aging-result in major changes in the cheese's flavor, color, texture, and aroma. Raw milk from cheese-producing animals differs little in taste and color. However, goat's milk cheese has a more piquant flavor and a whiter color than cow's milk cheese. Sheep's milk cheese is also white but carries a distinctly sharp flavor.
To make cheese, a bacterial culture is added to fresh milk to convert the lactose into lactic acid, which balances the pH level; then rennet or an acid is added to coagulate the milk, separating the curds from the whey. The curd is then heated, drained, and salted. Cheese made from these fresh, unripened curds (fresh cheeses), which include cottage cheese, farmer cheese, and chèvre, have a high moisture content and are unripened or only slightly ripened, resulting in a soft texture and a mild, sometimes slightly acidic flavor. The younger the cheese, the milder it will taste. Soaking or boiling a drained soft cheese, such as feta, in brine, stops the ripening process, which allows for longer storage and gives the cheese a saltier flavor. Hard cheeses are made by pressing the curds into molds and leaving them to ripen by the action of microorganisms, allowing for a range of possibilities in flavor and texture much greater than what is found in fresh cheeses.
Hard cheeses require kosher supervision to ensure adherence to Talmudic dictums, which prescribe avoiding unkosher rennet, enzymes, and milk. Therefore, hard cheeses were rarely prominent and frequently nonexistent in most Jewish communities. All of the Jewish cheeses in northern Europe are the curd type, primarily made from cow's milk and occasionally goat's milk. (Each goat produces about one gallon of milk a day, which yields about one pound of cheese.) On the other hand, Ashkenazim in Romania, influenced by the Ottomans during their control of the region, make various soft and hard goat and sheep's cheeses, frequently brined, most notably bryndza and kashkaval. The principal cheeses of Georgia are suluguni (string cheese), imeruli (a fresh, slightly sour cheese), and bryndza (a creamy, less salty type of feta). Sephardim, Italians, and Greek Jews, on the other hand, enjoy a variety of fresh and hard cheeses made from cow, sheep, and goat's milk. For centuries, many eastern European meals consisted solely of potatoes or black bread and curd cheese. Ashkenazim, some of whom owned their own cow or goat for providing homemade cheese and sour cream, ate curd cheese on a regular basis, commonly mixed with chopped cucumbers and radishes, mixed into noodles, and as a filling for various pastries, including kreplach, blintzes, knishes, and strudels. The original Hanukkah latke (pancake) was made from curd cheese; potato latkes did not become popular until the middle of the nineteenth century. In a more elaborate dish, curd cheese was sweetened, fruit sometimes added, and then baked. In Romania, Galicia, and Ukraine, cheese was frequently added to or layered with mamaliga (cornmeal mush) for dairy meals.
For millennia, many Mediterranean housewives weekly made their own soft, white fresh cheese, called queso blanco by Sephardim and jiben beida in Arabic, which went into their everyday cooking. Jews in the Ottoman Empire adopted various local Turkish and Greek cheeses. The cheese variety in the generally mountainous Balkans-Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia-was greater than that of eastern Europe, although much less so than that of western Europe. Jews in the Middle East primarily use goat cheese, including feta and labni (yogurt cheese). Goat cheese's intense flavor marries well with many other Middle Eastern foods, especially eggplant, olives, tomatoes, and bell peppers. The simplicity of feta's flavor makes it a perfect complement to bread and olives, as well as an important ingredient in vegetable dishes and pastry fillings. Sephardim used both soft (similar to pot cheese, chèvre, and feta) and hard (similar to kashkaval, Gouda, and Parmesan) kinds of cheeses, which they commonly cooked with vegetables to make dishes such as leek and cheese casserole, spinach and cheese casserole, and cheese-stuffed tomatoes.
What You Should Know: High and prolonged heat causes cheese to become stringy and tough. Therefore, always melt cheese over a low temperature for a very short time. Shred cheese for quick, even blending into sauces.
Favorite Ashkenazic Cheeses
POT CHEESE: Also called baker's cheese and hoop cheese. A partially drained curd, ideal for filling baked goods. In the Roman manner, the curds were frequently placed in a bread basket to drain.
FARMER CHEESE: A drained curd mixed with a little cream.
COTTAGE CHEESE: A relatively bland fresh cheese with a slightly acidic flavor, historically made by exposing the milk to natural bacteria, which coagulates the protein, separating the curds and whey. Today, this unripe cheese is generally made by adding a bacterial culture to milk to produce lactic acid. Since a creaming mixture is added to store brands, cottage cheese needs to be well drained for use in pastry fillings.
BRYNDZA/BRYNZA: A soft, crumbly white Balkan and Caucasian goat cheese that tends to be milder and less salty than the better-known feta. It is closest to Bulgarian feta. Production was historically from March to October, during grazing season; salting allowed it to be stored through the winter without a loss of quality. Bryndza is the primary Romanian, Slovakian, and Ukrainian cheese, eaten sliced and drizzled with an herb vinaigrette, used in dumplings, or served as an accompaniment to mamaliga (cornmeal mush). If substituting a very salty feta for the bryndza, soak it in cold water for a few hours to remove some of the saline.
Favorite Sephardic Cheeses
FETA ("slice" in Greek, as the 10- to 30-pound blocks of cheese are cut into wedges, then brined): A well-known brined cheese common to Turkey and the Balkans. Barreled feta is creamier and milder than the sharper and saltier tinned type. This crumbly cheese is primarily made from sheep's milk, but occasionally from goat's milk as well. Sheep's milk feta has a slightly nutty flavor and a texture that ranges from creamy to dry. Feta made from goat's milk has a slightly tangier flavor and whiter color than sheep's milk feta. Bulgarian feta tends to be creamier and less salty than feta from Greece. Most feta in the West is imported, and the type of milk and brining should be on the label.
HALLOUMI: A Turkish and Balkan full-fat sheep and cow's milk semifirm cheese similar to feta but milder and firmer, so it will not crumble when sliced.
JIBEN: Homemade Middle Eastern white cheese.
KASSERI/KASHER (meaning "kosher" cheese): A firm, slightly piquant but not very flavorful Greek sheep's milk cheese aged for six months to a year. Look for a smooth off-white interior.
KASHKAVAL: Similar to kasseri and based on the Italian caciocavallo. The basic firm cheese in Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria. It is made from sheep's milk or a combination of sheep and cow's milk. When aged for two to three months, kashkaval is mild and used for the table; more mature cheeses, with the color of straw, are stronger and used for grating.
KEFALOTYRI (keafalo means "head" in Greek, referring to the size and shape of this cheese): Made from either sheep or goat's milk, this is a hard, yellow, tangy Balkan cheese used for grating and shredding. Parmesan and Romano, although harder and saltier, or an aged kashkaval make good substitutes.
MANOURI: A soft Greek sheep's milk cheese with a buttery flavor and texture.
MITZITHRA: Made from feta and kefalotyri by-products, this is similar to sheep's milk ricotta.
TOULOUMI: A pungent goat cheese aged in brine.
Sour Cream
Back when my mother's Lithuanian grandparents moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1904, my great grandmother made her own sour cream (smetane), similar to the now chic crème fraîche, by mixing some buttermilk into heavy cream and letting it stand at room temperature for a day. Doing this was a necessity, as commercial sour cream was not yet available in many parts of the United States. You can make an approximation using the same method: Heat 2 cups heavy cream (not ultrapasteurized) to lukewarm (85°F), remove from the heat, stir in 2 tablespoons active-culture buttermilk or yogurt, pour into a sterilized jar or thermos, cover, and let stand at room temperature until thickened, about 8 to 12 hours. The sour cream will keep, refrigerated, for up to 12 days.
In 1882, Lithuanian immigrants Isaac and Joseph Breakstone (Bregstein) opened a small shop on Manhattan's Lower East Side that sold traditional eastern European dairy products, most notably butter, curd cheeses, and sour cream. They would scoop the sour cream out of large barrels into receptacles that the customers would bring from home. By 1912, the brothers were operating two manufacturing plants in New York State, selling wholesale butter, soft cheeses, and sour cream. In 1920, the Breakstone Company began mass marketing cream cheese, which first appeared in New York in 1872, based on France's Neufchatel; it quickly became popular among New York's Jews. When in the 1930s, innovation led to sour cream being sold in small wax-coated paper containers (Breakstone being the first to market consumer-sized packages of sour cream), this Old World ingredient spread across the United States, becoming a standard of the American kitchen. (Even my great grandmother began purchasing sour cream at the store but would occasionally still make her own, preferring its incomparable tang.)
Romanian Goat Cheese Spread
Pashtet iz Bryndza
ABOUT 2 CUPS
One popular use for sour cream was this cheese spread. Similar to the Austrian liptauer and Hungarian korozot. It originated as a way to use leftover soft goat cheese. Romanian and Bulgarian feta cheeses tend to be much creamier and less salty, resulting in a smoother texture and milder flavor than those from Greece and Turkey. Serve with mamaliga (Romanian Cornmeal Mush, page 379) or slices of Italian or black bread.
3 tablespoons sour cream or plain yogurt 8 ounces (1 1/2 cups crumbled) bryndza (fresh goat cheese) or mild, creamy feta cheese 1 hard-cooked egg, chopped 3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill 1 clove garlic, mashed with a pinch of salt Ground black pepper to taste Black olives for garnish (optional)
Mix the sour cream into the cheese until smooth. Stir in the egg, dill, garlic, and pepper. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or up to 1 week. Garnish with the olives.
VARIATION
Central European Cheese Spread (Liptauer/ Korozott): This spread was originally made from a soft, white sheep cheese called lipto. Omit the egg and dill. Add 1 tablespoon sweet paprika, 2 teaspoons caraway seeds, 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard, 2 chopped scallions or 2 tablespoons minced onion, and, if desired, 1 tablespoon drained capers.
Persian Spinach and Yogurt Salad
Borani Esfanaj
6 TO 8 SERVINGS
No Persian dairy meal would be complete without a borani, a yogurt and vegetable dish that is common in Persian cooking and particularly refreshing in hot weather. The name derives from the first woman to rule Persia thirteen hundred years ago: a queen named Poorandikht (or Pouran), who supposedly had a particular fondness for yogurt. Over the centuries, the pronunciation of pooran evolved into boran (the suffix "i" means "with"). Spinach, eggplant, and cucumber are the three favorite types of borani. In this version, the currylike spices complement the tangy yogurt and the slightly bitter, earthy spinach. Other recipes feature mint or fennel. If your yogurt is watery, drain it in a sieve lined with cheesecloth or a coffee filter for about 1 hour. Borani is served as an appetizer, a side dish, or a dip for bread.
3 tablespoons vegetable oil 2 large onions, chopped or thinly sliced 4 to 5 cloves garlic, minced 1 teaspoon ground cumin 1 teaspoon ground turmeric About 1 teaspoon cayenne or a few drops hot sauce 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 2 pounds fresh spinach, stemmed, washed, and chopped, or 20 ounces thawed frozen spinach, squeezed dry 2 cups plain yogurt About 1 teaspoon table salt or 2 teaspoons kosher salt About 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1. In a large saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until golden, about 15 minutes. Stir in the garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add the cumin, turmeric, cayenne, and cinnamon and sauté for about 2 minutes. Add the spinach and sauté until wilted, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the yogurt, salt, pepper, and, if using, hot sauce. Stir into the spinach. The mixture should be rather thick. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 1 day to let the flavors meld. Serve cold or at room temperature.
VARIATIONS Persian Borani with Fennel: Omit the cumin, turmeric, cayenne, and cinnamon and add 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds.
Persian Borani with Mint: Omit the cumin, turmeric, cayenne, and cinnamon and add, with the yogurt, 2 tablespoons minced fresh spearmint or 2 teaspoons dried, about 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, and, if desired, 1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts.
Persian Borani with Eggs: Omit the yogurt. After the spinach is wilted, make 6 indentations in the spinach, break 1 egg into each indentation, and cook over low heat until the eggs are set, about 5 minutes.
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Excerpted from Olive Trees and Honey by Gil Marks Excerpted by permission.
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