ARENCORES MAGAZINE Issue |No. 8 (Updated)

IMAGE SOURCE:ANOGEIAMUNICIPALITY (www.anogeia.gr)
IMAGE SOURCE:SHUTERSTOCK
Some of the shelters had two domes or
two rooms to separate the processes
of preparation and ageing. Standard
items and utensils found here included
the toupakia (straw baskets used as
molds for fresh cheese); pots and ladles
for the cheesemaking itself; a pan or a
pot where the shepherds would cook
their food; a katsouna (shepherd’s
crook) and some rudimentary form of
bedding.
Some would have family photographs
on the walls to keep them company and
to add a note of joy to their otherwise
drab surroundings.
Coming straight from the udder, the
milk was already warm when it was
poured into the hot cauldron and treated
with rennet, an enzyme found in the
stomachs of young ruminants that allows
them to digest milk.
Since there were no laws mandating
the use of pasteurized milk in the past,
the cheeses that came out of these
traditional dairies were quite harsh in
taste, with relatively intense and aggressive
flavors.
“Hole cheeses,” made with unpasteurized
milk, are particularly treasured, so
called because the natural fermentation
process and lengthy ageing create
large holes in their surface.
Most of Crete’s surviving mitata have
been around for at least several decades.
Many of them have been abandoned
and no one is building new ones
anymore, as developments in transportation
allow shepherds to live in their
villages or towns and dart up to the
pasturelands whenever the need arises.
Over the years, the old-fashioned cauldrons,
or kazania, which were used to
heat milk, have also fallen into disuse.
New food safety laws have changed
production processes, and, as a result,
have also changed the recipes themselves.
Crete’s cheeses are now made
in modern facilities with pasteurized
milk heated to exact temperatures in
stainless steel containers.
Although the method of production has
been modernized, the cheeses of Crete
remain very special indeed. More than
15 different types can be found on the
island today, but all of them share a
common history of production that began
in cauldrons bubbling away in the
island’s mitata.
DISCOVER MORE INFO ABOUT THIS FASCINATING STORY
AT GREECE IS ON-LINE: https://www.greece-is.com/mitata-the-origins-of-cretan-cheesemaking/
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