GASTRONOMIC EXCELLENCES OF THE LAND: THE CHEESE, basic food of our gastronomy.

The importance of cheese in the Canarian menu starts in the XV century, when it was introduced in the Archipielago and achieved such a great value that it was used as a exchange coin. The ellaboration of traditional cheeses has received the improvement of the goat livestock, has achieved a great diversification over the seven the islands and a considerable acceptance of the outside markets and therefore, according to the experts, it has to do with the best done island products. The cheese takes part of snacks and it is a food with its own properties. In the rural areas it is taken at breakfast time, with the “escudillas” (bowls) of milk and roasted maize meal. One of greatest consumed product is the fresh cheese, of hardly some days, with a soft flavour and lightly salty and among the most valuable varieties stand out the Majorero cheese, the Palmero and the flower, and the half flower cheeses.

The Majorero cheese: made of sheen paste, ellaborated with goat milk of the Majorera origin, counts on Regulatory Board and the Mark of Origin which guarantees its quality; the flavour of the product is sweet like and its maturing goes between 8 and 60 days. They get fresh, cured and semiprepared. As an anecdote, it is said that the Grancanarian writer Benito Pérez Galdós received Majorero cheese where at his house in Madrid.

The Palmero cheese: protected by its Mark of Origin, it is manufactured in all the Palmero municipalities with fresh cheese; soft and greasy, it has its own specialities: hand – made cheeses, made of fresh milk in the owners exploitation; hurdle cheeses, small and with an intense smoked savour, and herd cheeses, big pieces over 20 kilogrammes; its paste is white and brilliant, with ivory and dull shades, depending on its level of treatment. The fresh ones are mild and digestive, the smoked ones with a delicious scent, and they improve in a refined flavour as they get mature.

There are other cheese variations, special of each island and still of each region. In Tenerife the ones of Arico and Vilaflor are outstanding; in La Gomera, the treated ones that are used to do “almogrote” and in Lanzarote, soft and fresh cheeses, slightly salty.

The Herreño cheese, of a cream texture, has not got eyes and if they have them these are very small and they share out all the dough. The fresh ones have a nice, sweet and soft flavour, while the less treated and the cured ones are thicker. From remote times it is ellaborated the daily cheese without salt, which is kept for the preparation of cheesecakes, typical dessert of a great value.

In Gran Canaria it is ellaborated a variety which experts regards as an authentic jewell; it is the Flower Cheese, produced with cow and sheep milk in the hills of Guía and Gáldar, and as its name points out, it is obtained from crude milk with thistle flower; if the vegetable rennet is mixed with the goat one it is obtained the half flower cheese, of intermediate characteristics.