To wrap up my Pafos Easter visit, here is traditional Cyprus cheese in the making! Pafos is renowned for its amazing cheese (as for the bread, it has been famous since antiquity. Geographer and world traveler Strabo, Στράβων, declared that bread from Pafos was the best he had eaten anywhere).
To return to cheese. They make this with cow's milk. Milk boils and curdles (with rennet) in a huge cauldron. It is broken in chunks and placed in special wicker baskets called talarka (ταλάρκα, Cypriot dialect, singular talari). The chunks are pressed until all the water (whey) runs out. Then they are dipped in boiling water, are left to dry then salted. The chunks are cut in smaller pieces, placed inside (unused!) tights and are hung to dry. You can see them in the pics. Cheese stays like this for 5 to 8 days, at the end of which it is ready to eat or to be sold at market.
So amazing!!! To make a round of the Pafos villages is to take a plunge into Cyprus traditional art, cookery and crafts. I love Pafos and I'm proud to call it my home country 😀
Have a good night, always with beauty and a book! Xxx
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