The Cheese Makers' Breakfast

This afternoon, deep in a jet-lagged comatose slumber, I dreamt of cows feasting in a flower-filled spring meadow, and of cheese made from their milk.

In actuality this wasn't so much dream as memory. A little over two weeks ago Dave and I were in Bogatepe, a village set on a high plateau in Kars, northeastern Turkey. Kars is known for two cheeses: gravyer and kaşar. Bogatepe is one of the province's two main gravyer-producing villages. We'd driven some 70 kilometers from the provincial capital to learn about the cheese and its history, and to see how it's made.

Forget everything you think you know about Turkish cheese. Gravyer isn't white or soft or feta-like. It isn't fresh and it isn't aged in a hide. Gravyer would be at home on a northern European table -- not a coincidence, because it was introduced to Kars over a hundred years ago from Switzerland via Russia. Though its name suggests gruyere, gravyer cheese is actually closer to emmental in appearance, texture and flavor: palest yellow with large irregular holes, medium soft, savory, not too salty and mildly nutty.

We spent a long evening and a morning at Koculu Gravyer Zavotu ("zavotu" is derived from the Russian for factory) which, like Bogatepe's other mandira (cheese workshops) -- there are seven in all, and the majority produce not gravyer but kaşar -- uses milk from cows in Bogatepe and a couple of nearby villages. During the three-month cheese-making season Koculu, which dates back to the early 19th century, produces on average three truck wheel-sized rounds of cheese a day, usually two at night and one in the morning. The entire cheese making process takes over five hours, from the time the peynir mayasi ("cheese yeast", or rennet) is poured into huge copper cauldrons of milk taken from the animals just hours before, to the initial pressing of the cheese wheels under a stone-weighted wooden beam.

After 24 hours the peynir ustasi (cheese "master") and his helpers remove the press and peel the rough fabric "clothing" from the new gravyer wheels. Before sending the cheeses off to the depo where they will bob in a salt brine, sweat in a hot room and ripen in a cool room for months, they smooth the surface of each by scraping with the side of a spoon and trim its edges with a sharp knife.

Nothing goes to waste in a mandira. Leftover whey, thick and milky, is turned into food for livestock and given to the village's dogs. The oil that seeps from the cheeses during their weighting and while they sweat in the hot room is collected and distributed to villagers; the women, we were told, apply it as a cream to their faces and hands. ("That's why women in Bogatepe look younger than those in other villages," our host Ilhan Koculu told us.)

And after a long night (the usta and his staff were still working on their second wheel when we left the mandira at 1:30am) followed by an early rise to make yet more cheese the cheese makers take a breakfast that includes those super-young gravyer scrapings and trimmings, all fried in a shocking amount of fresh village butter.

Beyond giving nourishment and energy (and to us gravyer nugget newbies,unspeakable pleasure), those cheese crisps help the cheese maker to predict the quality of his product. After frying up a batch Ilhan demonstrated a test by pulling one apart. He was pleased. Its crackly, deeply browned exterior and long, unbroken string predicted a sufficiently oily cheese of just-right softness.

"This will be a delicious gravyer," he said, pleased.

And then it was time for breakfast -- not just butter-browned cheese, but ethereally rich and thick kaymak, pekmez (grape molasses), helva, bread, olives and -- of course -- tea.

Cheese makers' breakfast: crispy cheese nuggets and kaymak with bread and pekmez

As the cheese makers sat down to eat scrapings from one of the season's earliest cheese, cows gorged on early wildflowers in a pasture just across the road. That evening, their milk would make another wheel of Bogatepe gravyer.

From Dave and I, many thanks to Ilhan Koculu and Cat Jaffee.

Comments

[Steve Jackson]

Wonderful.

[Erin]

A great post! I dream of being able to tour places like this someday (:

As someone with an interest in languages, though, I'd like to know more about the word "zavotu", since it's not Russian. The Russian word for 'factory' that's similar is завод ('zavod'), but there is no form of it that would ever sound like 'zavotu', only the dative case 'zavodu', which in any event wouldn't be used in a factory's name.

I don't know Turkish, but Google Translate doesn't return anything for 'zavotu' from Turkish, and Googling the word itself just brings me back to your blog, and to a couple of misspellings of 'zivotu' from Slovak.

Interesting stuff, though--and it sounds like you had the perfect cheese maker's breakfast, indeed (:

[Robyn]

Steve, thank you!

Erin -- thanks for the language insight. I think the language mystery can be solved as such: the Russian word 'zavod' was borrowed and changed to 'zavot' by Karsians (you're right, there is no word zavot or zavod in Turkish, but like any place Turkey has plenty of dialects).
The 'u' at the end is a 'noun modifier' --- the vowel added to the end of a noun in Turkish to indicate possession or modification, which vowel being determined by the rules of vowel harmony.
Eg 'cheese master' or peynir + usta becomes 'peynir ustasi' ... and so gravyer factory or gravyer+zavot becomes 'gravyer zavotu'.
At any rate, definately a Russian connection which wouldn't be surprising given that Kars was once occupied by Russia.
Thanks for reading!

[Karen]

This is the first post of yours I'm reading after signing up to read it through Facebook. Yea! I'm excited to read your posts. You and your husband do such glorious work together.

Why is the cheese season only 3 months? Don't cows produce milk every day?

[Robyn]

Hi Karen -- great question! The cows don't produce enough milk to support cheese production when there is no pasture. As an indication of how important those lovely yellow flowers and green grass are to milk production .... the cheese season started 10-15 days late this year because of a late thaw.
During the winter some cows are sent to slaughter, others kept on, producing less milk which is sold to milk companies or consumed at home (depending on how many cows the household has) in the form of milk, kaymak, butter, etc. Even households that make their own cheese (most of them) don't produce cheese in the winter, but eat homemade cheese that's been aged in hides (or plastic).

[Farang]

Oh come on Robyn. How can you post this, knowing full well that most of us in Asia can't get decent (or affordable) cheese!!

[Robyn]

Farang -- I know, I know! It's cruel of me, isn't it? And now you know the real reason we keep returning to Turkey again and again. Also, real bread -- something else that's in a bit of a shortage here in Asia!

[Nate @ House of Annie]

Be still my heart.

[Crazy Radishes]

As a Turk living in the States, posts like these are making me homesick. Thank you for writing so beautifully about my country's food and customs! It's interesting that grass-fed/pastured cheese is all the rage (and so rare and expensive!) in the States, whereas it's just standard production in Turkey.

[Robyn]

Crazy Radishes, what a lovely comment. Makes my day (evening) -- thank you. Yes you're right, so much of what is all the rage and rare and expensive and artisan is just daily fare in Turkey. Just one of many reasons we love your country! (And miss it.)

[Christine]

Crispy cheese nuggets and bread for breakfast? Count me in!

[thyme (Sarah)]

What an experience. I can imagine my mouth would water seeing that fresh piece of warm cheese being pulled. Mmmmm...thank you for taking us along...

[JoAnn Janjigian]

Robin you're description are great Thanks so much. Pari Janabar!

[Robyn]

You're welcome JoAnn! Thanks for the kind words and Happy New Year!