Mediterranean Thistle Flower Cheese

The use of thistle flower as a cheese-making agent is a very old method, common throughout the western Mediterranean. In the Canary Islands, Aragon, and Catalonian Spain, ewe’s milk is traditionally curdled by steeping a small satchel of dried flower thistles of wild cardoons (Cynara cardunculus) in the milk as it simmers. This produces a thick, firm, sweet-tasting cheese with wonderful herbal aromas.

In Morocco, the dried thistle flower of choice is the wild artichoke (Cy