Mahón

What is Mahón Cheese?

Mahón takes its name from the town and natural port of Mahón on Menorca, an island off the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Cheesemaking here goes back a long way. Ceramic pieces found on the island, dated to around 2000 BC or by some authors 3000 BC, appear to have been part of the utensils farmers used to make cheese, and written documents from the 5th century mention cheese production and consumption on Menorca. In a letter written around the year 417, Bishop Sever notes in Latin that Menorcans ate milk and cow's cheese. The Designation of Origin came in 1985, and in 1997 the protected name became Mahón-Menorca Cheese.

The milk is cow's milk, curdled at low temperature, salted by immersion and matured according to island custom. About a century ago a class of gatherer-ripeners emerged on Menorca. They traded farm products, seeds, utensils and food, took fresh cheeses in exchange, and aged them in caves, watching the shifting winds and temperatures and handling the wheels carefully. Their work produced the original Mahón, soft, aired or cured, sold in markets across the islands and the peninsula. Menorca's cattle are among the highest milk producers in Spain, and all the milk from the roughly 600 farms on the island goes into dairy products.

The paste is white and ranges from soft to hard. The rind is usually orange, the result of rubbing it with butter or oil and paprika. By about ten months the cheese shows small misshapen holes and some granularity, and all aged Mahón is full of tiny holes. The taste is buttery sharp, slightly salty and lightly aromatic, with sweet and nutty aromas. Some of the sweet, fruity, faintly salty character comes from the sea salt in the grasses the cows graze.

Mahón is one of the most versatile cheeses in Spanish cooking. Its creamy texture suits pasta, potato, rice and vegetable dishes. The traditional way to eat it is sliced, sprinkled with olive oil, black pepper and tarragon. Most of the production goes into processed cheese, queso fundido, which is not the same thing as the cheese dish of that name. Young artesà keeps best in the vegetable compartment of a refrigerator, wrapped in airtight plastic to hold its softness, while harder aged wheels should be wrapped in foil or waxed paper.