Lietuviškas varškės sūris

Appearance & taste

The cheese has the shape of a triangular prism with rounded corners. At the thick end it bears the imprint of the knot with which the cheese bag was tied, and the imprints and folds of the fabric can be seen on the surface. Depending on its use, it weighs from a few hundred grams up to 5 kg and more. It contains 7 to 25 % fat in dry matter, low-fat cheese down to 0.5 %.

Fresh and dried cheese is white to yellowish. Baked cheese is yellowish to yellow-brown on the outside, sometimes covered with spices or herbs, smoked cheese dark yellow to brown on the outside; when cut, both are white to yellow. Fresh cheese is velvety, even and fairly dense and may crumble when cut; baked cheese is dense and somewhat elastic, smoked cheese dense and brittle, dried cheese hard, difficult to cut and crumbly when broken. The cheese tastes and smells of lactic acid, as well as of the spices used, such as caraway and salt, and smoked cheese also of smoke.

Production

The cow’s milk is standardised, pasteurised, cooled and soured with a starter culture of mesophilic lactic acid bacteria; it coagulates without added enzymes. Salt and herbs traditionally grown in Lithuania, such as caraway, garlic or mint, may be added as desired. Additives, flavourings and colourings are not allowed. The raw materials may also come from outside Lithuania.

After the whey has been separated, the curd is first pressed under its own weight. The curd mass is then filled by hand or by machine into triangular bags of permeable fabric, which are knotted at the wide end and pressed until the required moisture is reached. According to the specification, the triangular shape makes it easier to take the brittle cheese out undamaged. The cheese is cooled to 6 to 12 °C, taken out of the bag and, depending on the variety, smoked, baked or dried. Baked cheese with spices is first rubbed by hand with a mixture of spices and salt and stored for at least 12 hours at 10 to 20 °C. Packing takes place at the production site, because the fresh cheese is brittle, difficult to cut and keeps only briefly.

Origin & history

According to the specification, curd cheese was already made in Lithuania in the Middle Ages; inventories of manor houses from the 16th century mention it. At that time a pot of soured milk was placed in the cooling bread oven until the protein settled at the top. The mass went into a bag pointed at the bottom, drained while hanging and was pressed in a cheese press or under a board weighted with a stone. Because the cheese easily went mouldy in damp weather in spring and autumn, it was baked in the lukewarm oven or smoked, and dried for longer storage. In this way the inhabitants of the isolated farmsteads had supplies even in winter, when most cows were dry.

In 1690 the Prussian pastor Theodor Lepner described in “Der Preusche Littau” how the Lithuanians wrapped the salted curd in a cloth and let it harden while hanging. Recipes appear in Lithuanian cookbooks from 1893 (Tilsit) and 1911 (Seinai). The cheese has been made industrially since the end of the 19th century, but the curd mass is in part still stuffed into the bags and tied by hand. According to the specification, it is part of weddings and family celebrations; outside Lithuania it is made only on the surviving “Lithuanian islands” in Belarus.