The British Home for Spanish Cheese

HISTORY OF SPANISH CHEESE

The history of cheese in Spain varies depending on who you talk to. The Basque country makes the oldest claim, dating it as far back as 8000 BC. Some give credit to Moorish technology; others insist that the real knowledge of cheese-making was spread across the country by monks. What is certain is that by Roman times, the process was already well understood.

Spain boasts hundreds of varieties of cheeses make from sheep’s, goat’s and cow’s milk. Since it is a country of vastly diverse ecological conditions, these often determine both the animal and the breed which can best adapt to a particular area. The local climate and the type of micro-organisms which act on the curds will also traditionally have an effect on the style, appearance or cheese produced and the kind of maturing process it undergoes. Many of the shapes and patterns that pertain to a particular cheese were originally formed by whatever local material was available for making moulds, such as the ceramic bowls typical of the Levante coastline, or the carved wood and sycamore leaves often used in the mountains.

THE CHEESE REVOLUTION

Until the eighties, the majority of cheeses were not known or valued beyond the immediate vicinity in which they were produced, let alone in the UK and abroad. After 1975, when Spain opened up to foreign trade following Franco’s death, local produce tended to be looked down on in flavour of imported, often industrially made foods promoted for their consistency, milder flavours, smooth textures and their improved hygiene. So processed cheese began appearing on shop counters, along with the likes of imported sunflower and soya oils, marketed as superior to olive oil. The first official listing of Spain’s cheeses by the Ministry of Agriculture was printed in 1969 and included forty-eight varieties, but the government’s food safety authorities continually closed down unregistered or illegal dairies and insisted that any new ones must use only pasteurized milk.

As a result, many of the famous cheeses of northern Spain disappeared almost entirely, and indigenous breeds of cows were replaced by Friesian herds which produced higher volumes of milk, but with little of the character needed to maintain the quality of traditional Spanish cheese.

In spite of this repression, however, unpasteurized artisan cheeses continued to be sold in small village markets in rural areas such as Asturias, Andalucia, Galicia and the Canaries, where local authorities would turn a blind eye so long as there were no outbreaks of food poisoning or disease in the herds. Then, after years of totalitarian government, the early eighties heralded a resurgence of traditional culture, reflected in the formation of the first association of artisan cheese-makers. In 1981 Roncal cheese from the Navarran Pyrenees became the first Spanish cheese to be awarded the status of PDO, the EU scheme which protects particular, distinctive regional and traditional foods, and by 1989 a total of eight-one cheese had been officially discovered, 27 of which achieved PDO status.