Geitost

What is Geitost Cheese?

Scandinavians have boiled whey down into a brown, cheesy spread for at least 2,500 years. The firm, fatty version came much later. In 1863, working at the Valseter mountain farm in Gudbrandsdalen, the milkmaid Anne Hov started adding cream to the whey and boiling it in an iron pot. She called it feitost, fat cheese, later renamed fløtemysost. After moving to Rusthågå farm she mixed in goat's milk for a stronger taste, and the trader Ole Kongsli sold it in Christiania as Gudbrandsdalsost. In 1933, at age 87, Hov received the King's Medal of Merit.

Production is simple and slow. Milk, cream and whey are boiled together for several hours until the water evaporates and the heat turns the milk sugars into caramel. That caramel gives the brown color and the sweetness. Low-fat versions raise the proportion of whey. Nothing is ripened, so it is ready once packed and refrigerated.

The texture is firm, slightly softer than Gouda, easy to cut and shape, and it does not crumble the way hard cheeses do. The taste is sweet and caramel-like with a tang that shows up more in the varieties carrying goat's milk. Ekte geitost, made only from whey and goat's milk, is intense and closer to chèvre.

Geitost and gjetost are the names used for brunost that contains goat's milk. Gudbrandsdalsost, a blend of cow and goat milk with cream and whey, is the most popular type in Norway and abroad, and in the US it usually goes by gjetost alone.

Most of it goes onto sandwiches, crispbread and biscuits, and it is a fixture of the matpakke, the packed Norwegian lunch. Out of the fridge the texture shifts but the taste holds. It is also eaten on waffles and stirred into gravy for game meat.