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Wikipedia This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Tilsit cheese. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WikiCheese, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA).

Tilsiter cheese or Tilsit cheese is a light yellow semi-hard smear-ripened[1] cheese, created in the mid-19th century by Prussian-Swiss settlers, the Westphal family, from the Emmental valley. The original buildings from the cheese plant still exist in Sovetsk, Russia, formerly Tilsit, on the Neman River in East Prussia. [2]

The same ingredients to make the cheese were not available as in their home country and the cheese became colonized by different molds, yeasts, and bacteria in the humid climate. The result was a cheese that was more intense and full flavoured. The settlers named the cheese after Tilsit, the Prussian town they settled at. [2]

Tilsiter has a medium-firm texture with irregular holes or cracks. Commercially produced Tilsiter is made from pasteurized cow's milk, ranges from 30 to 60 percent milk fat[3] and has a dark yellow rind. After the main part of its production, the cheese needs to rest for an additional 2 months.[4] Often flavoured with caraway seed and black pepper, Tilsiter is a complement to hearty brown/rye breads and dark beers. It is a common table cheese, yet versatile. Tilsit can be eaten cubed in salads, melted in sauces, on potatoes, flans, or burgers.

Using the re-imported recipe, Tilsiter has been manufactured in Switzerland since 1893. Swiss Tilsiter is mainly produced in 3 varieties. A mild version (green label) is made from pasteurized milk, a more strongly flavoured one from fresh, unpasteurized milk (red label), and the yellow-labeled "Rahm-Tilsiter" is produced from pasteurized milk with added cream.[5]

References[]

  1. Fox, Patrick. Cheese: Chemistry, Physics and Microbiology. p. 200.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Westphal, Henriette (1887). Tilsiter, Unser Haus.  Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "Westphal" defined multiple times with different content
  3. "Codex International Individual Standard For Tilsiter"
  4. [1]
  5. "Tilsiter Switzerland (in German/French/Italian)"

External links[]

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