Brunost: the norwegians “brown cheese” that tastes like caramel.

2 min read

4 years ago Nathan

Norway’s national diet harks back to its days as a poor country, expecially with preserving fish and meats in salt, lots of potatoes and simple sauces, in a heritage still dominates today. One of Norway’s most intriguing foods (at least, for foreigners) is eaten daily by many Norwegians for breakfast, lunch, or as a snack.
Norwegians buy a special slicer just to eat their brunost, a “brown cheese” that has a texture more like fudge than any regular cheese, and a salty-sweet, almost tangy flavor.

Brunost, also known as mysost, mesost (Swedish), meesjuusto (Finnish), mysuostur (Icelandic), myseost (Danish) or Braunkäse (German), is essentially leftover whey from the cheesemaking process that’s been simmered into a sweet, caramelized paste, and left to harden. The cheese gets its brown colour and fudge like texture from the slow simmering process which allows the milk sugars to caramelize. A low-fat variant is made by increasing the proportion of whey to milk and cream.
Then diners slice into the finished product and serve it over rye toast, crisp bread, or waffles. It’s often paired with strawberry jam.

Interestingly, brunost likely stands out among other bread toppers when it comes to destructive capacities….
In 2013, nearly 60,000 pounds of brunost caught fire in a truck barreling down a tunnel in northern Norway. The fatty, caramelized lactose, which a Norwegian police officer likened to petrol, burned for more than four days. The officials couldn’t enter the tunnel due to toxic chemical levels, and it remained closed for weeks. Ironically, one member of the Public Roads Administration said, “I didn’t know that brown cheese burns so well.”