I think bryndza, Slovakia’s soft, tangy sheep’s cheese, is at its best in May. I saw it made the proper way on a sheep farm in Pokryváč, a village in the Orava region of northern Slovakia. When you buy it, check whether it’s pasteurised or unpasteurised, because that makes a difference. Bear in mind, too, that it’s high in protein but also in fat.
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I wrote this article in 2019. Prices, opening hours and connections may have changed since then, so check them before you travel.
How is bryndza made? There are two kinds of people in this world: those who love bryndza and those who can’t bring themselves to eat it. As a true Slovak, I love it and could happily eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But do you know how bryndza is made? To find out, I travelled all the way to Orava.
How is proper bryndza made?
I visited the small village of Pokryváč and its sheep farm as part of my travels around Slovakia with the Kraj grocery chain. On these trips I don’t go looking for sights but for our local producers. One producer a month. You’ll find articles and videos from all these trips in the Krížom Krajom s Milanom Bez Mapy series. In this article I’ll go through how bryndza is made, what’s in it, whether it’s healthy, whether bryndza can be lactose-free, whether it’s safe during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and how many calories it has.
FACT: All my life I’d thought bryndza was a purely Slovak thing, but the tradition of making it stretches across much of Eastern Europe. You’ll find it in Romania and Poland, and in Ukraine and Bulgaria too.
How is bryndza made, and why is May bryndza the best?
Bryndza is a salty sheep’s cheese, and the stronger its taste and smell, the better the pasture the sheep grazed on. That’s why May bryndza is the best: in May everything starts to flower and sprout. In 2008 bryndza was registered as a protected geographical indication. This means that only cheese made here in Slovakia can carry the name Slovenská bryndza, much as with Parma ham or Prosecco in Italy. Slovakia also has a Food Codex, and according to it, bryndza only counts as bryndza if at least 50% of its dry matter is sheep’s cheese (1).
How is bryndza made? From sweet sheep’s milk, curdled with either natural or chemical rennet. The curd is left to dry, which gives you sheep’s cheese, and this then goes to a bryndza dairy. There it’s sorted, washed and left to ripen at about 20°C. Then the rind comes off, and the cheese is squeezed, crumbled and salted. And there it is: fresh bryndza, ready to eat.
Pasteurised and unpasteurised bryndza: what’s the difference?
In case you’re not sure what pasteurisation is: it means heat-treating and sterilising drinks. Heating the drink briefly sterilises it. Pasteurisation is used above all for dairy products, where it gets rid of bacteria that can be dangerous for your digestion. And it is necessary, because it lowers the risk of illnesses such as salmonellosis. Beer and fruit juice go through it too. Pasteurisation kills the harmful bacteria, but the good ones as well.
Probiotics in bryndza
The difference between pasteurised and unpasteurised bryndza is simple: the unpasteurised kind hasn’t been heat-treated before you eat it. When I looked online to see which is better to eat, pasteurised or unpasteurised food, I found opinions that flatly contradicted each other. Personally, though, I lean towards pasteurisation. On the other hand, unpasteurised bryndza is full of probiotics, and pasteurisation destroys them. So if you eat bryndza for the taste, buy it pasteurised. If you eat it for the probiotics, which help digestion, go for unpasteurised. The catch is that it may contain harmful bacteria, listeria for example.
Can you eat bryndza when you’re pregnant?
The usual advice is that pregnant women shouldn’t eat bryndza. That’s a half-truth: it applies only to unpasteurised bryndza, which you can buy at a salaš, a sheep farm that makes its own cheese, and at stalls in towns all over Slovakia. The bryndza in shops and supermarkets is almost always pasteurised. The reason is the one I mentioned above: bacteria in unpasteurised bryndza, mainly listeria, which can cause complications in pregnancy.
Does bryndza contain lactose, and can it be made lactose-free?
There’s very little lactose in bryndza, so it’s suitable for people with lactose intolerance. The lactose gets used up as the bryndza ripens: during fermentation it turns into acid (2). In other words, every bryndza is (almost) lactose-free. Fermentation removes a large part of the lactose, though not quite all of it. That’s why the lactose content of bryndza is so low, and why it suits people with food intolerances.
Bryndza nutrition: calories, protein and fat
A hundred grams of bryndza contains 21 g of protein, just 2 g of carbohydrates, 25 g of fat and 317 kcal. So bryndza is one of the high-protein cheeses, but it’s high in fat too (4).
You might also like my article in which I compared Slovak free-range eggs.
SOURCES:
(1) https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryndza
(2) https://www.aktuality.sk/diskusia/334092/biele-zlato-zo-slovenska-bryndza-je-klenot-zdravych-potravin/
(3) https://najmama.aktuality.sk/clanok/230698/tehotne-by-nemali-jest-plesnove-syry-ci-bryndzu-a-preco/
(4) https://www.kaloricketabulky.sk/bryndza
A Slovak travel blogger who has been getting Slovaks out of their office chairs since 2013. Author of the book Influencer and founder of the Bez Mapy blog. "Bez Mapy" is Slovak for "without a map".
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