Danbo

Appearance & taste

Danbo is flattened square or rectangular. The rind is firm and has a smear layer; the surface may be covered with a protective coating. The paste is whitish or ivory to light yellowish, supple and soft, but firm enough to slice. It has few to many evenly distributed, round, pea-sized holes, usually up to 10 mm in diameter, sometimes with a few slit-shaped openings.

The taste is mild, slightly acidic and aromatic, with a characteristic note from the smear ripening; with age, smell and taste become stronger. The specification attributes the soft consistency that is firm enough to slice to the water content, which is high compared with similar varieties: at most 56 % at 30 to under 45 % fat in dry matter, at most 50 % at 45 to under 50 %.

Danbo may contain caraway if it decisively shapes the smell and taste; the paste then has several smaller, not entirely regular holes. The caraway must be stated separately from the name, but in the same field of vision.

Production

Danbo ripens with a special smear ripening known as the “Danish method”: the cheese is treated moist, so that it ripens from the outside in. A great deal of water is added during production, which is one of the reasons for its consistency. Taste and texture develop over two to four weeks of ripening at 7 to 21 °C. All production steps take place in Denmark, including ripening in Danish ripening stores.

Origin & history

In 1889 Rasmus Nielsen became manager of the Kirkeby dairy on Funen, which was recognised as a training dairy for dairy workers. With a grant from the Danish state he travelled in 1897 to East Prussia, where the small dairies were known for their cheeses, and then to Holland. Back in Kirkeby he did not want to copy any of the varieties he had seen, but to develop a new one: a square pressed cheese whose rind was rubbed with a solution of several bacterial and yeast cultures. According to the specification, both were new at the time. The variety sold well, and other dairies took it up.

Until the Second World War the cheese was made mainly for Denmark. As exports grew from the 1950s, eleven Danish cheese varieties were given Danish names in 1952, among them Danbo, in line with the Stresa Convention; later the Codex Alimentarius also adopted the name. It is made up of “Dan” (from “Daner”, Danes) and “Bo” (the settled one) and denotes someone who is at home in Denmark.

For more than 100 years, making Danbo has been part of the curriculum of the Danish dairy schools. According to the specification, it is the most widely eaten cheese variety in Denmark and is regarded as the Danish national cheese, but is eaten almost only by Danes.