käsegruppe (12. 655)

Of course we like to have a sample of the local culinary heritage when on holiday and while the herbal liquor (Kräuterlikör, Schnapps) from the Müritz might be a unique concoction to try as well as the smoked fish—we learnt that the cheese label, which is fairly common in stores throughout Germany but not certain if we had ever tried it is not a product with a protected geographical indication but rather a style of mild cheeses marketed for its flavour profile, rather than its location—partially to distinguish it from the neighbouring Holsteiner variety that is afforded such legal status—as a German Tilsit (Tilsiter) cheese. Similar in taste and texture to Havarti, cheesemaking practises were introduced to the region of East Prussia by waves of immigration from Switzerland’s Emmental region, fleeing religious persecution and at the bidding of the kingdom’s rulers in order to repopulate Mecklenburg area after a decimating outbreak of the plague in the eighteenth century. The recipe was eventually reimported to Switzerland but the new settlers created distinct styles with the ingredients and conditions of their new home. The method and tradition was named after the dairy operation centred in the city of Tilsit in the former Borussian province, where the original buildings exist to this day—under the rule of the Teutonic Knights from the eleventh through sixteenth centuries there was already a robust cheese-making industry—with not less than seventeen towns and villages named Milchbude, milking stall, in their domain but little standardisation existed beforehand. Once Prussia was formally dissolved and the easternmost lands ceded to the Soviet Union as reparations for World War II, the territories became Kaliningrad oblast and the town on the border with Lithuania renamed Sovetsk (Сове́тск) but retains the name Тильзи́тер for the cheese, also produced in Poland, Estonia and Ukraine.