Well, I finally made it to Sweden, to the capital Stockholm to be more precise. I seem to be off to a good start in finding some new local foods. In a fairly well-stuffed grocery store, Sabis at the mall, Fältöversten I found cheese from a family cow dairy: Stafva Gårdsmejeri, located on Sweden's largest island Gotland. This fifth-generation family farm, the von Corswant's, with their eighty cows, is one of about one hundred small scale dairies in Sweden. They produce three soft-ripened farmstead pasteurized cow milk cheeses: Stafva Vit, white cream, Stafva Blå, blue veined and Stafva Ockra (washed rind). From what I read, they produce about one hundred kilo's worth of cheese per week. Silly of me I only bought a piece of the washed rind Stafva Ockra, price 590 SEK/kg, (that's $41/lb ouch!) a really wonderful creamy, pungenty thing with an orange rind. They themselves refer to this as a Taleggio-type of cheese. Much like a northern California cheese-favorite of mine, Red Hawk from Cowgirl Creamery. During a few sommer months they also offered a black hard truffel cheese, aged 5-6 months. A batch will be released for christmas they said.
Washed rind cheese is called 'kitt-ost' in Swedish. When I grew up, a ridiculously mild washed rind (barely any flavor) swedish Port Salut was often on the breakfast table, not something I'd buy again.
By the way, by "local" I'm going to mean the whole country, nine million strong, somewhat the size and shape of California. As a reminder to myself: in the near future I'm going to look for a few Swedish cheeses producers: Skärvångens Bymejeri and Oviken Ost, both from the county Jämtland way up north. Stenviks gårdsmejeri from Ljusterö, Jürss mejeri from Flen and maybe Grythyttans Ysteri. A Swedish newspaper, Dagens Nyheter posted a list of quality cheese outlets that I'll try and go to, since I'm (especially) on the hunt for local artisan cheese makers.
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