Tasty Greek Cheeses
February 18th, 2008
Feta is a relatively easy cheese to make. It does not require careful ageing, it has no skin (so does not have to be methodically rinsed) and the process is more or less the same regardless of the equipment used. But nowadays, Greece’s most celebrated cheese is manufactured in huge, mechanised factories. The Peloponnese, Cephalonia and parts of Epirus are the last bastions of barrel-aged feta.
Takis Langhas runs one of the few remaining traditional feta factories in Mantinia - a cool mountain plateau in the centre of the Peloponnese. Four tons of sheep’s and goat’s milk arrive each morning to be skimmed slightly, pasteurised and poured into three enormous vats at a temperature of between 35 and 38°C, depending on the weather. Big salt crystals, rennet and a starter help the cheese set. Forty-five minutes later, the curds are as solid as gelatine.
A long, steel paddle fitted with rows of wire about an inch apart is used to cut the cheese, first horizontally then vertically, into a grid. As the thickened curds continue to set, the cheese master presses them repeatedly, and pumps out the greenish whey. The volume in each vat drops by half.
About an hour after the moulds have been filled and salted, the cheese master flips them, salts them again and divides each wheel into three triangular wedges. The curds must be flipped and salted by hand three times during the course of a day.
Next morning, the solid cheese is placed in a barrel, where it remains, unsealed, for 3-5 days. Then it is washed down with brine, placed in new barrels and left to ferment and mature for between two weeks and 40 days. Finally, by law, it is refrigerated for a minimum of two months before it can be sold.
Apart from feta produced in different locations, the Peloponnese produces a number of cheeses found all over Greece, including graviera, mizithra and kefalotyri. After feta, the Peloponnesian cheese with the highest profile is sfela, also a brine cheese but saltier. Sfela is shaped into thin bricks and almost always aged in tins.
Crete is a very interesting and beautiful place so grab your Map of Crete, find a room in hotels such as Blue Palace Resort Crete and start your dashes in all four prefectures. You won’t be disappointed!
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