Feta is not our only cheese...

We have an abundance of cheeses from the mainland and the islands, some with ancient roots as the one that ages in goat's skin.

Some of the cheeses we offer to our guests. Costas selects them from all over the country. Here in a rare setting at Vicki & David’s old house overlooking Kea’s main town.

“The average (per capita) annual consumption of feta in Greece is more than 12 kilos, out of a total cheese consumption of 25 kilos, which is the highest in the world,” according to the official statistics. Feta and other cheeses are part of the meal, not served at the end as they are in France and in other European countries.

They traditionally accompanying all our vegetable dishes —braised green beans, stuffed summer vegetables etc.— as well as all kinds of bean soups.

Touloumotyri

In a world without refrigerators, this delicious cheese that ages inside a goat’s or sheep’s skin was once a necessity in countries all around the Eastern Mediterranean. Few people on Kéa continued the age-old tradition.

More than ten years ago I documented the making of touloumotyri, this rare cheese that ages in goat’s skin.

Despite the short distance that separates Kéa from Athens some of the island's traditional foodways have not yet been entirely lost.

Giannis maroulis, with his wife Margarita and their daughter Maria, cultivate seasonal vegetables in their garden in Mavrou. In the winter they make sausages and loza —the delicious smoked pork loin of the Cyclades. In the summer, they make xynó, a local mild spreadable cheese,. They also used to make touloumotyri.

Touloumi is the sack created from sheep or goat’s skin. At the end of the spring before the heat takes hold, Giannis used to slaughter a large animal whose skin he salted well and left for about ten days. "Thorough salting in all parts of the skin plays a very important role," he told me.

The salted skin was spread out in the sun for a couple of days, to dry. Then it was soaked in water and shaved carefully, leaving just about three millimeters of hair.

The woolly layer would be the inside part of the skin sack.  The thorough salting and the prolonged washing in the sea, removed the hairs that were not well attached to the skin, so they did not mix with the cheese. “The hairs insulate the cheese from the skin, holding a thin layer of air and keeping it cool,” Giannis had told me.

This was the ancient way of making touloumotyri. In Turkey and in other parts of the region where similar cheeses are made, the hairy part is usually on the outside; a safer choice.

Then starts the painstaking work of closing the openings to create the touloumi/sack. The two front legs are tied in a knot, while the lower part is fixed by passing through an especially chosen sprig of lygaria (chaste tree, Vitex agnus-castus) a common bush here, with strong elastic sprigs.

The process is difficult, and requires four hands. Maria pushes the thin wicker carefully, as one would thread with a long needle that would pierce the various hard layers of skin to tightly close the opening.

This sewing-like process requires great care and dexterity. The wicker should not break, because if it does, the process must start all over again.

Marika, Giannis' late mother-in-law, used to help fill the touloumi with cheese from the neck opening. It is impressive how much it would hold. When no more cheese could be pushed in, the opening was tightly tied, and the heavily salted sack was placed in a cool, well-ventilated place. It would remain there for two to three months.

The resulting sharp, salty touloumotyri is served doused in olive oil, usually as meze with raki or the semi-sweet local island house wine.

My spicy Levantine cheese

Sun-drying laban —a fresh cheese made by straining yogurt— was another means, before the invention of cold storage, to preserve perishable dairy products.

The cheese was shaped into balls and then rolled in an aromatic mix of seasonings—za’atar, red pepper flakes, or a mixture of local herbs and spices—and then dried completely until rock-hard, finally ready for extended storage in clay jars.

The original fermented, extremely pungent Spicy Levantine Cheese Balls, or shanklish, are a multipurpose spice in their own right. Ground with a mortar and pestle, they can be used to provide different dimensions of flavor to salads and vegetable dishes.

Syrian-born chef Mohammed Antabli, owner of Al Waha considered one of London’s top Middle Eastern restaurants, makes a modern version of this age-old cheese with a mixture of yogurt and feta, rolled in spices.

I varied the spices slightly, but I followed his brilliant way of making these wonderful cheese balls. Crumble them over salads, like the one with beets and arugula, or slice the log-shaped cheese and serve it on its own as an appetizer, drizzled with good, fruity olive oil. You can preserve shanklish in jars, submerged in olive oil, in the refrigerator. They will keep for up to 4 months.

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