Iradi Cheese
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Iradi cheese (Iradi: panyr, a word of Persian origin; Russian syr in Nurzhan) is the cheese made in Irad. Cheese was made in the oasis towns and the Christian valley villages long before the Soviet dairies, and several kinds are local to particular regions. Most is made at home or on the summer pastures and sold in bazaars; the Talas Dairy Processing Combine makes factory cheese for supermarkets.[1][2]
Varieties
- Ak panyr ("white cheese"): a fresh brined cheese of sheep's or cow's milk, sold in slabs at every bazaar. It is eaten with bread and herbs at breakfast and is the filling of eer nan.
- Örmö panyr ("braided cheese"): strings of stretched curd braided into loops and smoked over juniper. It is a cheese of the Chatkal valleys, sold at roadside stalls beside the smoked kurut.
- Tulup panyr ("skin cheese"): crumbled sheep's cheese packed into a cleaned sheepskin (tulup) and aged through the summer on the high pastures. It is sharp and salty and is eaten with flatbread and raw onion.
- Küp panyr ("jar cheese", from Persian kūpa, "jar"): sheep's cheese aged for months in clay jars set in cellars and washed with the brandy sygyndy. The cave cellars of Kyzyl-Senir keep it beside the wine.
- Khirnou panyry ("Khirnou cheese"): a goat's cheese of the Tat of the Khirnou valley, pressed in hoops of juniper bark and aged in stone niches in the house walls.[1]
Mare's milk
Mare's milk, the milk most associated with Irad, does not curdle into cheese, and "cheese from a mare" (biyeden panyr) is a saying for something impossible. Mare's milk is drunk fermented as kymyz.[2]
See also
References
- ^ Talas State University Press (2012). The Iradi Table: Recipes and Customs of the Talas Valley. Talas.
- ^ Talas State University Press (2019). Kymyz and Kazy: Food, Faith and Identity in Irad, pp. 23–61.