Bryndza

Bryndza
Country of origin	Romania, Slovakia, Poland
Region	Central and Eastern Europe
Source of milk	Sheep
Pasteurized	No
Texture	Depends on variety
Fat content	Depends on variety
Certification	Bryndza Podhalańska: PDO Slovenská bryndza: PGI

Bryndza (from Romanian brânză) is product of a sheep milk cheese made mainly in Slovakia, Romania and Moldova, but also in Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and part of Moravia (Moravian Wallachia) in Czech Republic. Bryndza cheese is creamy white in appearance, known for its characteristic strong smell and taste. The cheese is white, tangy, crumbly and slightly moist. It has characteristic odor and flavor with a notable taste of butyric acid. The overall flavor sensation begins slightly mild, then goes strong and finally fades to a salty finish. Recipes differ slightly across countries.

Known as juhtúró in Hungarian, брынза in Russian, brenca in Serbian, Brimsen in German, and ברינזע in Yiddish,bryndza, a word borrowed from Romanian brânză ("cheese"), is used in various countries throughout Ukraine and the EU, due to its introduction by migrating Vlachs. Though the word (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈbrɨnzə]) is simply the generic word for "cheese" in Romanian, there is no special type of cheese associated with it. It is a word presumably inherited by the Romanian language from Dacian, the language of the pre-Roman population in modern-day Romania. Outside Slovakia and the flanking regions of Southern Poland, it is still popular nowadays in the Czech Republic under the Czech spelling "brynza".

The word was first recorded as brençe, described as "Vlach cheese", in the Croatian port of Dubrovnik in 1370. Bryndza was first recorded in Kingdom of Hungary, in 1470 and in the adjacent Polish Podhale in 1527. In Slovakia, bryndza serves as the main ingredient to bryndzové halušky, which is regarded the national speciality (halušky - small gnocchi - are mixed with bryndza and topped with fried chops of fatty bacon). Bryndza is therefore regarded as typically Slovak product. The modern version of the soft spreadable bryndza is believed to have been developed by entrepreneurs from Stará Turá (Western Slovakia) toward the end of the 18th century who founded bryndza manufactures in mountainous regions of Central and Northern Slovakia where sheep cheese production had deep roots in the local cheese manufacturing tradition, and traded with it, popularizing bryndza all around the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy. In Austria, it was called Liptauer, after the northern Slovak Liptov region. The Viennese speciality Liptauer, a savoury cheese-based spread, has replaced bryndza with common cows' milk cottage cheese because the original Slovak bryndza disappeared from Austrian market after the disintegration of Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

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