Cebreiro

Appearance & taste

Cebreiro is mushroom-shaped or shaped like a chef’s hat and consists of two parts: a cylindrical base at most 12 cm high and a cap that is 1 to 2 cm wider and at most 3 cm high. For cheeses over 2 kg the base may be up to 15 cm high and the cap up to 4 cm wider than the base and up to 5 cm high. A cheese weighs at least 0.3 kg and contains 45 to 60 % fat in dry matter.

The fresh cheese has no rind. Its paste is homogeneous, white or slightly yellowish, soft and without holes; when cut it can appear slightly grooved and crumbly. It smells and tastes of soured milk with notes of cream or butter, feels grainy but melting on the palate and is very sticky. The aftertaste is lasting and slightly sour.

The ripened cheese has a barely developed, yellowish to dark yellow rind on which mould may have formed, depending on ripeness. Its paste is ivory to yellow, buttery to firm and sometimes hard depending on the degree of ripening, and contains less than 50 % moisture. The taste is milky and can be slightly metallic and sharp. Ripened Cebreiro bears the word “curado” (ripened) clearly on the label. Each cheese also has a numbered control label with the emblem of the designation of origin.

Production

The milk comes from cows of the Rubia Gallega, Friesian and Brown Swiss breeds or their crosses, kept on registered farms in the area. The pastures and forage crops of the area are an important source of feed; when conditions allow, the animals graze freely on grassland and scrubland. Concentrated feed of plant origin supplements their energy needs. The milk may not be standardised or altered in its composition.

Pasteurised whole milk is used with animal rennet or other expressly authorised coagulating enzymes and salt. The milk is curdled, the curd cut and the whey removed; then the mass is kneaded and salted, shaped and pressed. Ripened cheese ripens for at least 45 days. Milk production, cheesemaking and ripening take place in the area. The cheese is generally sold whole; portioning can be authorised if a control system safeguards its origin.

Origin & history

The area covers 13 municipalities in the province of Lugo, including Pedrafita do Cebreiro, Samos, Triacastela and Folgoso do Courel. It has an oceanic mountain climate with clear continental features. Much of it lies above 1,000 m, is very cold for Galicia and has fewer than five frost-free months. The land is poorly suited to arable farming but well suited to livestock farming: numerous valleys enclosed by mountains are characterised by meadows and pastures. The milk comes from small family farms, where many native cattle are still kept in traditional herds and eat mainly home-grown green fodder.

According to the specification, the cheese goes back to the monks who settled in Cebreiro, where the French Way of St James enters Galicia, to run the pilgrims’ hostel built at the end of the 9th century. Over the centuries pilgrims made the cheese known in Spain and Europe. Records in the National Historical Archive and the General Archive of Simancas report that under Charles III two dozen cheeses from Cebreiro went to the Portuguese royal house every year. Villagers, mainly women, made them at home from November; they were sent in the last two weeks of the year, because the cold made them keep longer, and given to the Queen of Portugal in the first half of January.

Documents from the 18th and 19th centuries attest to the cheese’s reputation. The “Geografía General del Reino de Galicia” of 1936 describes it and how it is made. In the 1970s Carlos Compairé Fernández published studies with chemical and bacteriological analyses, according to the specification probably the first scientific studies of the cheese. In 1996 the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture included it in its inventory of traditional products. According to the specification, it can be recognised immediately by its chef’s hat shape.