Olomoucké tvarůžky

Appearance & taste

Olomoucké tvarůžky is sold as discs, rings or sticks, usually of 20 to 30 g, or as irregular pieces. The surface carries a golden-yellow smear, in some varieties visibly with herbs and spices. The consistency is semi-soft to soft, the core distinctly lighter. The cheese contains at most 1 % fat with at least 33 % dry matter.

The taste and smell are sharp, piquant and complex and, depending on ripeness, range from mild to quite pungent. They arise from the strong breakdown of protein brought about by the microflora on the surface during ripening.

Production

The starting material is sour-milk curd made without rennet, crumbly, with large, firm grains and strongly acidic. It is ground, mixed with salt and stored briefly in containers. It is then mixed with ripening cultures and, if necessary, with as little sodium or calcium carbonate as possible as an acidity regulator, and ground again until an even mass forms. The cheeses are shaped from this and placed on racks in ripening rooms.

At a constant temperature and humidity they first pre-ripen on the surface. They are then washed; in the second stage of ripening a microflora multiplies on the surface that forms the golden-yellow smear and gives the cheese its taste, smell and colour. For varieties with herbs and spices, these are worked evenly into the surface. The cheese is packed first individually and then in multipacks, in which it continues to ripen for up to seven days at a set temperature.

Origin & history

The area is the Haná region with its geographical and economic centre Olomouc. There, the making of the cheese has been documented since the end of the 15th or the beginning of the 16th century. Colloquially it is also called “Syrečky”, “Tvarůžky”, “Tvargle” or “Olomoucké”; the specification calls it the original Czech cheese. It is mentioned in the specialist literature, for example by J. Kux, Klenze, Mair-Waldburg, Laxa and Kněz. In Loštice, where the cheese has been made for a long time, a museum of its own is dedicated to it.