A Tradition of Haloumi

Posted by Jonathan Leach on Jun 18, 2011 | 0 comments

 

Today’s filming took us to Pano Deftera, a small village south of Nicosia.  Here we visited a cheese maker to see the process of making haloumi cheese, the most popular Cypriot cheese and commonly served with the meze.  On the way to the location I was not sure what to expect.  My knowledge of cheese was limited to the middle of a sandwich.  Upon arrival, we were greeted by, an older lady that ran this family business.  She told us of how she was a nurse during the war and picked up the craft afterwards as a way to provide for her family while still staying home to watch the kids.

The area where the cheese was made was a renovated garage detached from her home.  Those passing through could easily glance over it, unaware of the process taking place.  But what draws one in isn’t the sight, but the potent smell of the sour milk.  The overpowering smell combined with Cyprus heat is enough for someone with a weak stomach to never want a bite of cheese again. We pressed on though, recording and jotting notes as Elpida went through the steps of the process.

The process involves heating the milk inside the large vats while continuously stirring so it doesn’t burn.  Then, the heat causes a layer to solidify at the

bottom; this is haloumi in its earliest form, which resembles cottage cheese.  They then use buckets to take out the haloumi and pour it into metal pans

lined with cheese cloth. Then the excess milk is strained through the cloth and when the cheese is pressed it takes the form of the rectangular pans.

Now the haloumi actually looks like a block of cheese and is cut into squares.  These squares are then put in separate bags and put back into the hot milk to soak up more flavor.  When this is done the haloumi is removed from the vat and bags, seasoned with salt and mint and readied for shipping.  The entire process spans approximately three hours.

Among many other interesting things, Elpida told us that she was the only one in the Nicosia area that still makes haloumi in the traditional fashion.  It was interesting to me that she would be one of the last people in the long history of this tasty morsel, and once she quit making cheese the art would be lost in the listless factory lines of disconnected workers.

“Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it..” — W. Somerset Maugham