TupĂ cheese is one of the most traditional cheeses from Catalonia, coming from the Pyrenees mountains.
This cheese has a very strong flavour and smell and it's quite spicy, with a creamy texture. It can be made from either sheep or cow milk, with some alcohol spirit added during the preparation. Though we often simply call it "tupĂ", its full name is "formatge de tupĂ" (tupĂ cheese), because the word "tupĂ" means the kind of pottery cooking pot that is used to prepare it.
Historically, shepherds used to make this cheese with leftover milk products from making other cheeses. They used the rennet and old cheeses they had (often, cheeses used to crack or grow in "ugly" shapes during the maduration), cut into little pieces and put in the tupĂ pot, and add aiguardent liquor (sometimes other types of liquor like anĂs or orujo) and optionally also a little bit of olive oil. The cheese fermented in the tupĂ, stirring it often to achieve the spread cheese consistency, and reached a second fermentation which gives it its characteristic strong and spicy flavour.
Nowadays, this cheese is no longer always made reusing already-matured cheese. Instead, it's made directly from the milk or from tender cheese or cured cheese, and it also uses softer alcohols like sweet wine, softer types of aiguardent, or beer. These changes have preserved the strong and spicy flavour but made it a bit softer.
It's delicious, but definitely not for everyone's taste!
Photos: Formatgeria del Montseny (Essavia), Formatges Blancafort (ClĂşster de Muntanya). Information source: Fira del Formatge de LladĂł and Gastroteca.
