7

O

ver the past few decades

Australian specialist

cheesemakers have

successfully adapted many

of the classic techniques used to produce

European benchmark cheese, but very

few of our household favourites can

claim to be original types.

One notable exception is marinated

cheese. Made from fresh curd preserved

under a blend of seasoned oil, this

unique Aussie cheese type is also known

as marinated feta. It has become so

popular that it is now considered a cheese

category in its own right. At this point

I have to confess that adding flavour to

cheese is not something I would normally

encourage or want to write about. But this

cheese is different and it’s hard to not feel

a sense of national pride when I find it

displayed in the dairy cases of posh

retailers around the world.

Australian marinated cheese was

invented in the early 1990s by legendary

cheesemaker Richard Thomas. At the time

he was the driving force behind the newly

built Yarra Valley Dairy, and I recall long

discussions at a mutual friend’s house

on the challenges of how to ensure fresh

curd cheese flavoured with garlic did not

ferment or taste like dried stuffing mix

after a few days. The result of his

endeavours was Persian Feta, a name

he linked to the ancient cheesemaking

principles that inspired the original recipe.

The fertile crescent that once

stretched from the Jordan Valley to the

Zagros Mountains of Iran is where sheep

and goats were first domesticated more

than 6,000 years ago. The gradual shift to

pastoralism during this period encouraged

the regular production of surplus milk,

and the discovery of how to make pottery

made it possible to make and store cheese,

transforming it into an essential seasonal

food for the first time. These early cheeses

were made from simple coagulated curd,

and would have spoiled rapidly in the

heat unless they were preserved with

salt and pickled in an airtight container.

Their legacy today is feta, brinza, jibneh,

domiati, and the many other examples

of crumbly white brined cheese found

in Europe and the Middle East.

Thomas experimented with preserving

cheese in brine and salted yoghurt, before

settling on olive oil. It wasn’t until later

that he felt his idea was validated – he

met two Iraqi women in Australia who

described how the pickled cheeses of

their cuisine were sometimes stored in

seasoned olive oil in pottery containers

lined with wool, which were buried deep

underground in the desert.

“I had no idea on how to make a

traditional feta, and instead substituted

chunks of freshly drained salted curd

before covering them with a combination

of canola and extra-virgin olive oil,

sprinkled with some black peppercorns

and a sprig of thyme,” says Thomas. The

clever blend was concocted to prevent

the olive oil from solidifying when the

cheese was refrigerated. More importantly,

the oil had been carefully infused with

crushed garlic weeks in advance, and this

provided the combination with a distinct

signature flavour that proved hard to resist.

Thomas moved on to Meredith Dairy

to perfect his marinated cheese recipe, this

time using goat instead of cow’s milk curd.

The choice of goat’s milk was important

because it produced a finer-textured curd

with a distinct lemony finish; another

reason it was to become the benchmark

recipe by which all other examples are now

judged. Its secret, according to its creator,

is simply “very fresh, quality goat’s milk

from [Meredith Dairy owners] Sandy and

Julie Cameron’s farm, soft, moist, fully

fermented curds, and fresh garlic”.

As both the reputation and sales

of marinated cheese have grown,

cheesemakers around the world have

been scrambling to imitate its success.

There’s now a diverse choice available

and the category includes an incredible

range of flavour options, including chilli,

smoked salt, saffron, juniper, honey, dill

pollen, and even, for some reason, truffle

oil. But there is nothing quite like the

original and Thomas’s comment sums it

up: “Meredith marinated cheese always

tastes fresh and bloody delicious, and

goes with almost anything.”

In my opinion he’s spot on, and

the continued popularity of this unique

cheese speaks volumes about the rightness

of his original idea.●

Marinated feta is a true

Australian original,

writesWILL STUDD,

a real national

treasure of a cheese.

Feta

days

46 GOURMET TRAVELLER

PHOTOGRAPHY ROB SHAW. STYLING AIMEE JONES. MARBLE PLATTER FROM THE LOST AND FOUND DEPARTMENT. BLACK KNIFE AND MEDIUM BOWL FROM MONTMARTRE CONCEPT STORE. ALL OTHER PROPS STYLIST’S OWN. STOCKISTS P168.

Cheese