Part 10

Both kinds are dried in the sun.

From "anari" is made a kind of fat used as cooking butter, by crushing and rubbing it between the hands in warm water. A thin paste is thus formed from which a fat separates, which rises to the surface, and is then collected.

Paphos and Akanthou Cheeses.--These are prepared in much the same way as "halloumi," but are made in smaller, barrel-shaped moulds, and are steeped longer in the whey, which produces a rind and renders them tougher and less liable to crack. They are well rubbed with salt. Their characteristic flavour is doubtless due to some extent to the milk of those districts, as explained above. Owing to their small size they become very hard.

Kefalotyri.--The best cheeses of this type are made with sheep's milk, which is coagulated at its natural temperature immediately after milking. Rennet is added so as to produce coagulation within an hour. The cheeses are placed in moulds, pressed and salted. They are turned and salted every day for a week; and this continues for two or three weeks, until the cheeses cannot absorb more salt.

Fetta.--The process for making this cheese is much the same as for Paphos cheeses, but differs in regard to temperature. It is placed in bags and hung up, or left in cheese cloths on the table to drain. It is made up in 100 or 200 dram pieces, and turned and lightly salted for three days; then placed in barrels filled with brine. This cheese ripens in a few days. It is soft, and has a sharp, pungent flavour. It is the first to come on the market. It is not consumed in Cyprus, but made entirely for the Egyptian market, where it is much liked. Being soft, it does not keep well, and should always be kept covered in brine. For these reasons it is exported in small barrels of a gross weight of 40 to 50 okes. If care is taken in this respect, if all leaky barrels are kept refilled and cool storage provided, it may be preserved for a year; but these conditions are rarely fulfilled in Cyprus.

Telemés.--This is another soft cheese, prepared in a similar manner to "fetta," but it is cut into square blocks and placed not in barrels or vats, but in tins which, when completely filled with cheese and brine, are soldered down. This cheese is also made entirely for the Egyptian market.

Kaskaval or Kaskavalli.--This is mostly made by cheese-makers who come over from Greece or Turkey during the cheese-making season.

The curd, after the whey is drained off, is called "phlongos," and it is almost always bought from the shepherds, each shepherd preparing it in his own way. It is transported in baskets, sometimes a good distance, to the cheese factory, or "kassaria," and these drawbacks, added to lack of cleanliness, are the cause of much cheese of inferior quality being produced which has no keeping properties and must be quickly consumed.

Having reached a pasty condition, the cheese is placed in reed or willow baskets and immersed in either boiling whey or clean water and stirred until the whole mass is transformed into "kossimari"; it is then cut into pieces weighing one or two okes, and moulded by hand into a globular form, leaving one slight depression called the "omphalos" or navel. If not properly stored, this cheese soon dries and becomes rancid or tasteless.

Agrafa Cheese.--This is made entirely from sheep's milk. Coagulation should be completed in 25 to 30 minutes. The cheese remains 20 hours in the press. Salting lasts from 40 to 60 days, and the cheeses ripen in four months. If well stored, the cheese may keep for two years.

Butter

Butter making is carried on to only a limited extent in Cyprus, and with two or three exceptions is in the hands of shepherds, who use a primitive conical-shaped churn, something after the Danish pattern. Churning consists in beating up the contents of the churn with a stick, to the end of which is fixed a round wooden disc 6 to 10 in. in diameter, not unlike a piston in its action. Sheep's milk is mostly used and, with a modern churn, this will yield 9 to 12 per cent. of fresh butter. Goats' milk gives about 5 to 6 per cent. About half the above quantities may be obtained with the older, native churn.

In the Near East (Greece, Turkey, etc.) fresh butter is not used in cooking, as almost all cooked food is fried and butter containing the least water and casein cannot serve the purpose. The pure fat must therefore be extracted. Two methods are applied. The best is that of plunging the tins containing the fresh butter into hot water which heats the butter and sends the fat to the surface. It is then collected and slightly salted. This has a good flavour and keeps well.

The second method is to place the fresh butter, or the residue from the former process, into tin pans and boil until the water is evaporated, when the albuminoids solidify at the bottom of the pans. The fat which is then on the surface is ladled out. This is inferior in quality, and has a disagreeable smell imparted by the albuminoids which come in contact with the hot pan.

Xynogala or Yaourti

The former is the Greek, the latter the Turkish name for this preparation of sour milk. Unlike fresh butter, it forms, in season, part of the diet of almost every Cypriot household. It is now made in England and sold as "Bulgarian milk" or "yaourti." It is in the form of clotted cream, but if placed in a bag of fine cloth and if the whey is left to drain off, it forms a thick paste, and has an excellent creamy flavour, and is eaten in both cases either alone or, like Devonshire cream, with stewed fruits, etc.

Trachanas

This is another favourite milk preparation, being a mixture of "yaourti" and ground wheat made into a thick paste. This is sun-dried and makes an excellent soup.

Kaimaki or Tsippa

This much resembles Devonshire clotted cream. It is the natural cream formed after boiling the milk overnight and setting it in shallow pans to cool. If the boiled milk is poured into the pans from a height, so as to make a foam, a better result is obtained.

V. CROPS AND OTHER PRODUCE OF THE LAND

CEREALS

The Messaoria plain is the principal corn-producing area of the island. Wheat, barley and oats are the chief cereals grown, and they are sown more or less throughout the whole of Cyprus, nearly up to the summit of Troödos, to an altitude of about 4,500 ft. Indian corn has been cultivated for ten years or so, and is becoming more general both for green food and for seed, and rye has begun to make its appearance during the last few years. Dari is becoming more known.

The preparation of the land for cereals is as follows: About the middle of January, when the land is soaked with rain, the fallow field ([Greek: neasma] or [Greek: neatos]) is broken up, and in some cases sown with a green fallow, and in March or April it is cross ploughed ([Greek: dibolo]). If the autumn rains are early, the field is ploughed for a third time ([Greek: anakomma]), after which the crop is sown; but if the rains are late, the sowing is done on fields which have been cross ploughed only. As a rule sowing begins after the autumn rains, and may go on until January. But if rain does not come before the end of October, many sow before the rain; and in many places farmers sow regularly before, i.e. without waiting for the autumn rains. This sowing is called [Greek: xerobola]. Lands flooded by a river or other running water are called [Greek: potima] (Handbook of Cyprus, p. 154). The sowing is done broadcast; the drill is not used.

Fig. 1.--Carting Corn.

Fig. 2.--Threshing Corn with Native Threshing Board.]

Often, owing to want of sufficient hands and shortness of time or other reasons, land which has been fallowed is sown without being first ploughed up. This is called [Greek: eis to prosôpon], i.e. on the surface, or face of the field. Again, a field which has had a corn crop is sown the next autumn without ploughing; and this is locally called "on the stubble."

It is not uncommon for the same land to be sown year after year with a corn crop, with no rotation. This is especially the case with the deep soils in the plains, known as "kambos," as contrasted with the shallow, rocky soils called "trachonas."