A Feast of Cheese at YESAM – Culinary Arts Center

Based on the book with the same title, “When Cheese Sleeps,” the seminar was about cheese and how it’s made.  During the seminar, Artun Unsal shared some really interesting facts about how cheese was invented, types of cheese and how cheese is made.  Mr. Unsal started his speech by explaining the etymology of the word “peynir” (Turkish word for cheese), and continued speaking about “how the milk is put to sleep” as a reference to how the cheese is made. He explained the process as follows:

“To put the milk to sleep... is a phrase that is still used in Anatolia and it means to make yogurt, however you need to be really careful as to how the milk is put to sleep.  If the milk is put to sleep by different people, the outcomes will be different. If we use rennet or casein as the starter, then we end up with cheese. Cheese was actually invented by mistake. The first cheeses were milk that had soured and gone bad. Because of this, in Anatolia some cheeses are still called “ekşimik” (soured milk).

To make cheese, one needs milk. To get the milk, one needs to domesticate cows, sheep, goats or buffalo. Domestication first started in Asia in 7000-8000 B.C. Among the first animals to be domesticated were sheep and goats, therefore the first cheese was made from the milk of these animals.  Cows were domesticated in 5000 B.C. in Europe.  Since Europe had more greenery and water sources, cow’s milk cheese became more popular in Europe.” After this explanation, Mr. Unsal explained that cheese can be categorized according to the types of milk used. The important thing is that milk should contain casein and should be from an animal that ruminates. In the villages, the most popular starter that is used is omasum of lamb or kid. Mr. Unsal explained how the milk is processed inside the body of the animal. He then explained the cheese-making techniques:

“France has over 243 types of cheese, when it comes to us, we always belittle ourselves and say, we only have a few types of cheeses, however this is not true.  In essence there are only eight types of cheese. The rest is just derivatives of those types. You can make different kinds of cheese by using different kinds of milk, different aging times, or by cooking the cheese or keeping it raw.  In terms of fashion one can make many different combinations. The 8 different types of cheese are; fresh soft cheeses, soft ripened cheeses,  washed rind cheeses, uncooked pressed cheeses, pressed and cooked cheeses,  blue-veined cheeses, natural-rind cheeses, and processed cheeses.”

The guest speaker of the seminar, Sabri Özderici attending from Mustafakemalpasa, who is a 3rd-generation cheese monger, took the stage and talked about cheese-making traditions he has learned from his family. He also mentioned the major differences between cheese-making in local places using local techniques, and making cheese in industrial places.

After the seminar, the participants had a chance to taste 16 different types of local cheeses along with traditional foods made with cheese. Among the traditional foods were bacu (fried hard cow’s milk cheese), cingen salad (a salad with white cheese, tomatoes and herbs), 2 types of börek (savoury pastry) with cheese, zucchini fritters with cheese, cheese-stuffed zucchini cooked in olive oil, and cheese halva.

Lecture video is in Turkish.