9 Types Of Trappist Cheese, Explained
Our final entry comes from Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, complete with a long and winding story about more than a delectable cheese. However, the cheese chapter alone is fascinating enough for our purposes. The BBC writes of the largest Trappist monastery in the world, now home to only three monks, and the lost-recipe cheese named for the monastery. Marija Zvijezda (Mariastern abbey), later called Trappist of Mary Star, had been produced by the abbey until 1996, when the monk who knew the word-of-mouth recipe passed away. That’s right — this production method was so heavily guarded that only one monk at a time was allowed to know the entire recipe, with other monks only specializing in one particular aspect to keep it hidden even from them.
Luckily, with a little ingenuity and help from some French Trappist monks adept at making washed-rind cheeses, the recipe was resuscitated in 2007 (as per Anadolu Agency), much to the relief of everyone involved. Currently, two of the three monks living in the abbey are in charge of producing this mildly scented (relatively speaking, at least), supple, and creamy cheese with a touch of saline and sweetness (via Banja Luka Tourism). The smooth rind is meant to be eaten, so nothing slows you down when you cut into one of these gorgeous rounds.
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