Tilsit cheese

Tilsit is a cheese made from cow's milk with red smear bark with 30 to 60 % fat in dry matter. He is after the city of Tilsit, now Sowetsk named.

Production and Properties

The Tilsit is gekäst from both raw milk and pasteurized milk, and raw milk variant is usually enriched with some flavors.

In addition to the classic shape of a wheel of cheese is increasingly produced in block form. He has a thin, brownish bark, which is rubbed off during the six months maturing with salt water and red smear. The light yellow dough is smooth, elastic and quite moist, it forms stye large holes and slots. The flavor scale ranges from mild to strong and slightly spicy piquant.

Tilsit historically

Dairies there were already too religious times, because 17 villages led at the same time the name milk booth. The Tilsit cheese is a result of improved formulations by Dutch Mennonites, Salzburg and immigrants from Switzerland. These were migrated to the Great Plague in the first half of the 18th century as religious refugees into the depopulated northern East Prussia or followed the call of the Prussian rulers. The round red-brown cheeses were 10 cm high and had a diameter of about 25 cm. They were (later in tin foil ) wrapped in parchment and were sent to ten in wooden rollers.

Tilsit today

Since the name of the cheese is not protected, is now produced Tilsit in eastern Switzerland and in Germany as well and offered (mainly in the eastern states ) under that name under the name Great Enser. As early as 1890 brought the two Swiss cheese Otto Wartmann and Hans Wegmüller the original Tilsit recipe that they had met in 1890 in the " milk shop" in Tilsit, in Switzerland. From the year 1893 the both the " immigrant " cheese produced in Thurgau. Later he became increasingly produced in the territory of today's Germany, as the eponymous town of Tilsit now part of the Russian Kaliningrad Oblast since 1946 Sowetsk means. There is also a Russian cheese Sovetsky that is not named after the city and has little in common with the traditional Tilsit: it is mild, has fewer and larger holes and resembles the Emmental. Tilsit the opposite according to Russian and Tilsit (Russian Тильзитер ) and is now also manufactured in Russia under this name. In Poland, he is seen as the Tylżycki ( Tilsit ).

Increasingly milder to the taste almost reminiscent of Edam cheese under the name of Tilsit are also sold in Germany and Switzerland; previously the norm spicy flavor you are looking mainly for supermarket goods often in vain.

A very similar the Tilsit cheese is the Danish Havarti and Esrom.

Swiss Tilsit

In Eastern Switzerland Tilsit is produced since 1893, since 1993 under the trade name " Tilsit Switzerland". The production takes place in the cantons of Thurgau, St. Gallen and Zurich Oberland mainly. The Swiss Tilsit has not the ordinary in Germany or Denmark strongly holey shape and the taste is not as pronounced tart or not comparable. The flat round loaves have a height of about 8 cm, a diameter of 25-30 cm and a weight of about 4.0-4.5 kg.

Part of the "variety Organization ( SO) Tilsit Switzerland GmbH ", the milk producer, Tilsit manufacturers and dealers, manages the brand name and also strives for the quality and marketing of Tilsit. She has defined the following Tilsitersorten:

• Tilsit Switzerland means Reif ( red and white label) with fresh milk, with a maturity period of 70-110 days.
• Tilsit Switzerland Surchoix ( red-black- gold label) with fresh milk, with a maturity period of 120-180 days.
• Organic Tilsit Switzerland ( red and white label with organic bud ) from fresh organic milk, with a maturity period of 70-110 days (medium ripe ) or 120-180 days ( extant).
• Past- Tilsit Switzerland ( green and white label) from fresh pasteurized milk, with a maturity period of 30-60 days (mild).
• Cream - Tilsit Switzerland (yellow- white label) from fresh pasteurized milk with Rahmzusatz, with a maturity period of 30-75 days.
• Organic cream Tilsit Switzerland (yellow- white label with organic bud ) from pasteurized fresh organic milk with Biorahmzusatz, with a maturity period of 30-75 days.
• Alpine Country Tilsit Switzerland, under the brand name AlpenTilsiter Switzerland exported ( red and gold label with Alpine country panorama ) with fresh milk, with a maturity period of 120-180 days. The loaf is abraded during maturation with a mixture of alpine herbs and Müller -Thurgau white wine. This variety is produced since 2003

The different varieties have a fat content of at least 45 % fat in dry matter, which have at least 55 % fat in dry matter with the exception of the cream - Tilsit and the organic cream Tilsit.

2007 produced 3787 tonnes of Swiss Tilsit, of which 53 % of the varieties from Central Mature, Surchoix, organic Tilsit and alps - Tilsit, 40 % of the variety Past- Tilsit and 7 % of the varieties cream Tilsit and organic cream Tilsit.