Metsovone

A very interesting smoked cheese made from cow’s milk to which some goat’s milk is added for fragrance and taste. This cheese is also produced in Metsovo by the Baron Tositza Foundation. Smoked cheese is not a recent invention; in Athenaeus is a description of a bread “that looked like smoked cheese.”

From that phrase one suspects that smoked cheeses were common in antiquity. The Metzovo cheese curds are kneaded before being placed in cylindrical tin molds, where they are left for three hours. The cheese is then dipped in brine and left for one or two days, according to the weight of each piece. After that, it matures for about two to three months. The matured cheeses are then smoked over a fire of vine cuttings, to which some special herbs from the Pindus Mountains have been added.