News reports of a protracted fire in a tunnel involving Norway's beloved brunost (brown cheese) spread beyond the county of Nordland this week. In rather understated style, Kjell Bjorn Vinje of the public roads administration said: "I didn't know that brown cheese burns so well."
You don't have to be a biochemist to know that fat and sugar are quite combustible, and any Norwegian cook will tell you that with its low melting point and high fat content brown cheese is easy to use in dishes, but it seems unlikely that anyone in the police department or at the local brown cheese production facility would have a contingency plan for a scenario in which 27 tonnes of the stuff catches fire in a tunnel.
It has, however, brought some attention to a little-known oddity in the cheese world. It's fair to say brunost hasn't a huge fanbase outside Norway (and the photo caption on yesterday's news story illustrates just how well known it appears to be).
So what exactly is brown cheese? It's quite unusual. Visitors often say that it tastes like a sweet-savoury, fudgey Caramac, which may sound unpromising. I'd rather describe it as a deeply savoury dulce de leche, and as such it can be a challenge to non-Norwegians. The sweetness comes from overcooking whey until a Maillard reaction kicks in and the milk sugars caramelise. Brown cheese doesn't go through any maturation process, and it keeps in the fridge for a few months.
Suffice it to say, this is our version of Marmite: you either love brown cheese or you hate it. No one has ever tried it and been indifferent to the stuff but I have been known to convert even the most strident of haters to the brown cheese cause.
My favourite is a raw milk version that comes from Undredal on the west coast of Norway where one plucky Frenchwoman, Pascale Baudonnet and her Norwegian husband are preserving the practice of making brunost the traditional way. For the first time in the UK you can now try this raw variety of the cheese as part of a Scandi cheese plate at London cheese emporium La Fromagerie, but for a lighter, more caramel version I always pick up Synnove Gudbrandsdalsost when in Norway.
Brown cheese is quintessentially Norwegian, and imbued with all the romantic notions of national identity in this oil-rich country (think Grieg's Peer Gynt, Ibsen's plays, Amundsen beating Scott, traditional Marius jumpers, stunning natural landscapes, trolls). It is really only eaten in Norway (apart from a few plucky Swedes who eat something similar called mesost) and we love it. Most households will have a variety (there are surprisingly many) in their fridge and a cheese slicer is essential for getting the requisite thin slices: no hacking away with a stilton spoon here, please.
No wonder the Hairy Bikers stopped by a brown cheesemaker on their bakeathon around Norway – you can't experience the country properly unless you've tried our national cheese. You'd have to be a heartless cheese-hating crone to not love this classic advertisem*nt from Norway's dairy monopoly Tine of a little boy spending his first pocket money in a bakery where he can't afford anything except a slice of freshly baked bread and two slices of brown cheese.
Like any intensely flavoured ingredient in a cook's larder, brown cheese is endlessly versatile. A typical Norwegian dish is finnbiff or venison stew: brown cheese is the secret ingredient that adds both depth of flavour and richness to the sauce. I also use it in a sauce for meatballs, and although brown cheese has an affinity with savoury autumnal and winter flavours such as game and mushrooms, I pair it with chocolate in a Daim cake, bake biscuits with it and sneak small amounts of brunost into a number of baking recipes when I want to add extra Scandi oomph.
But the best way to enjoy brown cheese is to eat it with real bread (the good stuff, full of grains). Washed down with a cup of tea or coffee this makes the perfect breakfast – forget Fruit & Fibre, this is Fat & Fibre, Norwegian-style. As Nordic Nibbler rightly suggests, we also love it with waffles, and Patricia Michelson of La Fromagerie admits to shaving the raw Undredal version on to toasted rye bread in the morning and topping it with mashed banana. With Knife And Fork put me on to the idea of grilling brown cheese on toast and it's rather good. After reading about the tunnel fire, however, I may be a little more circ*mspect when I grill brown cheese from now on.
