[Sca-cooks] RE: Cheese in the Domostroi

[Yana]

 >Does anyone know if the Domostroi has anything about cheese 
or >cheesemaking,
 >or should I point her to one of the secondary sources like "Bread and Salt"?

Why, yes, the Domostroi does have info about cheese. Cheese was recommended 
to be produced at home (Pouncy:150), in order that you [the homeowner] 
would "celebrate your good fortune every day.  You will never have to go to 
market."  So cheese was also commercially produced.

Cheese was kept in either the cellar, the icehouse, or in the small 
storerooms (Pouncy:165).  The text lists many different foodstuffs, and 
doesn't say which was stored where.

The above is from the SCA-period parts of the Domostroi.  There is no 
mention of how the cheese was made in the Domostroi, in either the period, 
or non-period sections.  I checked the original Russian, to see what was 
being translated as "cheese," but it is just "syr", the generic word for 
"cheese."  I was hoping that it might be "tvorog" (a certain type of 
Russian cheese) or something more specific.

In "Bread and Salt" (I'm going to abbreviate it "BaS", and may I say that 
boy, you are good. You actually made me move some computer equipment 
around, just to get to my cooking files.), cheese is mentioned as one of 
the items eaten on Easter Sunday, as well as placed on the altar (a common 
practice even today, for parts of the Easter feast to be brought to chuch 
to be blessed) [BaS:98-99].  Cheese was also used as a filling in breads or 
rich breads (korovai) in the very early 17th century [BaS:116].  There is a 
mention of caviar being pressed into cheese [BaS:125], but no date that I 
could find (it's hot, gimme a break).

Now since I couldn't check the original Russian for the Easter references, 
it might possibly, *possibly* be that the cheese in question eventually 
became part of what is called today (don't know about then, but likely the 
same) "paskha," a sweetened cheese mixture that was molded into a pyramid 
and marked with the Cyrillic initials "XB", which stand for Khristos 
Voskres (Christ is Risen).  Think of it as a slightly grainy, crustless 
cheesecake.  Very yum.  It is traditionally made with tvorog, a dry cottage 
cheese.  Tvorog can also be pressed and drained, so that it is much more 
firm and can actually be sliced (kinda crumbly, like feta).  This is what I 
would keep in mind when thinking about period Russian cheeses, that they 
may have been very similar to the modern tvorog.  Easily made at home, 
could be pressed and dried, which would keep much longer than in the more 
liquid-y form.

To sum up, yes, the Russians ate cheese (at least the upper-middle classes 
did, and perhaps their servants), but no, we don't know what type of 
cheese, or how it was made.  Hope this saves some research!

--Yana (Geez, I just rejoined the list yesterday!)
<http://medievalrussia.freeservers.com>