People & Place
Nordic, Eastern European and Caucasus Cheeses
Nordic, Eastern European and Caucasus cheeses offer a wide field for exploring names, regional traditions and ways of making cheese. Follow the reading routes below to find the questions that interest you, from a cheese’s identity to its place at the table.
Start here
Jarlsberg
Cut into Jarlsberg and those great, rounded holes catch your eye before you take a bite.
Brunost
Draw a thin shaving across bread or crispbread.
Gamalost
Long, pale threads of mould spread across a cheese in Vik, western Norway.
Västerbottensost
Your cheese plane meets Västerbottensost and a neat slice becomes a tumble of brittle flakes.
Havarti
Your knife meets a little resistance, then a neat slice of Havarti falls away.
Danablu
Steel needles pierce the salted cheese.
Leipäjuusto
Lower a wedge of pale, brown-spotted cheese into hot black coffee.
Everything in this section
- OscypekA carved wooden ring presses its pattern into a spindle of cheese.
- BryndzaIn a mountain dairy, matured sheep’s cheese meets the grinder.
- TvorogDip in your spoon: tvorog may yield softly or tumble into loose, pale crumbs.
- SulguniPull apart the warm, folded curd and watch its supple layers separate.
- SveciaA neat slice of Svecia settles onto your breakfast bread.
- PrästostPicture a farmer in Småland setting aside particularly good cheese for the church.
- HerrgårdsostAt Marsvinsholm in southern Sweden, a Swiss cheesemaker arrives with a task: make something resembling Emmental.
- EsromBring a piece of Esrom close and the yellow-orange rind catches your eye.
- AuraScatter Aura over rye crispbread and the salty tang arrives before you have considered a second piece.
- Slovenský OštiepokTurn it in your hand: an egg, an oval, perhaps a pine cone.
- Olomoucké TvarůžkyThe smell reaches you before the first bite.
- DžiugasBreak a piece of 24 month Džiugas and golden yellow cheese gives way with a crystalline crunch.
- ChechilWarm curd stretches into fine threads.
- ImeruliA clay pan sits over embers in an Imereti village, bread wrapped around a filling of fresh, crumbly cheese.
- AdygheHot curd settles into a woven basket.
- KorbáčikLoosen the end of a cheese braid and pull.
- ParenicaFollow that ribbon of cheese as it curls into two connected coils, neatly held together with cheese string.
- DanboPicture Kirkeby dairy on Fyn in 1897.
- Tushetian GudaHigh in Georgia’s Caucasus mountains, cheese ripens pressed against clipped wool.
- Brânză de MăguraCut into a pale cream block, past its gently rounded edge, and you may find a few small openings inside.
- Brînză de PopeascaBread, tomatoes and a pale piece of cheese that crumbles slightly as you break it: a modest plate, with plenty to say.
- Brânză frământată de TeacaFirst comes the kneading.