Tangled cheese

Chechil, which translates as "tangled", is an Armenian brined cheese made from cow's milk. It can be produced as braids, thin strings, noodles or sticks. Armenian shepherds originally began making chechil as a way to preserve milk for the winter. It is worth noting that its shelf life at low temperatures is more than 60 days.

The cheese is made from fresh, pasteurized, reduced-fat cow's milk, which is coagulated with rennet of animal origin. Rennet or pepsin is added to milk heated to 32 degrees. The resulting cheese coagulum is then stirred and heated to 60 degrees. The cheese flakes are gathered, salted and laid out in the sun. The cheese strings are formed either by hand or with special equipment — the UFSN cheese string forming unit. The braided strings are placed in brine, where the cheese stays for about a month.

An interesting fact worth mentioning: since ancient times, the quality of chechil has been checked with the eye of a needle, through which the string had to pass.