I took a break from decoding menus from restaurants in Spain to look at cheeses that originate in Spain. I’ve done this type of investigation before (previously for Italy) and it’s a challenging task. Names of cheeses can be very inconsistent from different sources. Even with DOP names now more common there can still be inconsistencies.
And, of course, using any online source for raw material has the challenge that its author may be wrong or misspelled names or introduced other errors. And consolidating all the names found in different sources is difficult to automate while simultaneously this is a large quantity of information to attempt to mentally collate especially when one is not conversant in the language.
I’ll explain my process below but in case you just want the excellent source I found I’ll describe it first, even though it was after a lot of searching I discovered it.
While it’s entirely in Spanish and as a PDF not subject to Google Translate when accessed through the web browser this is a very nice document: CATÁLOGO ELECTRÓNICO DE QUESOS DE ESPAÑA (slow to download but worth the wait).
It has pictures of the cheeses and even some of the animals for the milk plus standardized descriptions including items like: Zona de Elaboración (processing area), Ingredientes (ingredients), Tipo de Queso (cheese type), Aspecto Exterior (outward appearance) and Aspecto Interior (interior appearance).
And then even more helpful is this section, Características Organolépticas (Organoleptic characteristics, I had to look up the English definition on this which is “acting on or involving the use of the sense organs”), which then includes: Textura al Tacto (texture to touch), Olor (odor), Textura en Boca (texture in mouth), Aroma (aroma), Sabor (flavor), Otras Sensaciones (other sensations), Gusto Residual (residual taste), Persistencia (persistence). In case you’re not sure what Gusto Residual means here it is for Gamonedo cheese (from Principado de Asturias):
El gusto después de ser tragado es: a avellana, con predominio suave de humo (The taste after being swallowed is: a hazelnut, with soft predominance of smoke.)
And here is an example of Persistencia for Curado (cured/aged) Mahón-Menorca cheese:
Media-elevada, presencia de mantequilla fundida, aceite de oliva y caldo de carne. Entre quince y treinta segundos (Medium-high, presence of melted butter, olive oil and meat broth. Between fifteen and thirty seconds)
In addition to this extensive, informative and attractive PDF there is another part of this site where you can filter the list of cheeses, i.e. Buscador de quesos (Cheese Finder (aka Search Engine)). The filters are: Seleccione (Select): Comunidad Autónoma (Autonomous Community), tipo de leche (milk type), calidad diferenciada, régimen de calidad (differentiated quality, quality regime). So for example I did search for cow’s milk (leche de vaca) cheeses from Cantabria and all (todas) quality regimes and got:
| Marca
(mark or brand) |
Tipo
(type) |
Procedencia Leche (Origin of milk) |
Comunidad Autónoma
(Autonomous Community) |
| Picón-Bejes-Tresviso | D.O.P. | Leche de vaca | CANTABRIA |
| Queso Nata de Cantabria | D.O.P. | Leche de vaca | CANTABRIA |
| Queso Pasiego | Sin figura de calidad comunitaria reconocida (No recognized community quality figure) |
Leche de vaca | CANTABRIA |
After finding the list you can click on the cheese name for the full information page equivalent to the CATÁLOGO pages. You could either use the search tool to find a cheese you might want to try (some Spanish cheeses can be obtained online) or browse the CATÁLOGO.
back to my process for compiling a list of cheeses
But undaunted by these challenges, from past experience, I decided it was time to assemble a complete and accurate list. This only slightly matters for reading menus at restaurants and more likely would be useful for purchases at retail establishments but again knowing what you’re eating in another country is the inspiration for my project.
So I proceeded with the usual suspects, first doing several Google searches (to get the terms right to provide the best source materials) and then following several promising sources. As usual Wikipedia had a useful page List of Spanish cheeses with a fairly long list (fortunately tagged by region) with some links to pages for the more common cheeses. Having processed this list I immediately assumed the Spanish language version of Wikipedia would possibly have an even better list and it did – Quesos de España. Another seemingly authoritative source, Spanish Cheese Guide, covers all (?) of the DOP names.
From all these sources I generated a single list which required picked a “canonical” name and then finding all the variations from the sources. For example this cheese, Arzúa-Ulloa, appeared in all my sources (compiled thus far) but as you can see under quite different names even including a misspelling.
| Queso Arzúa-Ulloa (P.D.O.) | Galicia | 1 | link |
| Arzula Illoa | 2 | link | |
| Arzúa | Galicia | 3 | |
| Arzúa-Ulloa | Galicia | 5 | link |
| Arzúa-Ulloa | Galicia | 6 | link |
So after consolidating the list from five sources and choosing what appears to the the “standard” name (for those cheeses that appear on more than one list) here is what I believe is a fairly comprehensive lists:
Abredo, Acehúche, Afuega’l Pitu, Ahumado de Pría, Alhama de Granada, Alpujarras, Andalucía de cabra, Ansó-Hecho, Aracena, Arribes de Salamanca, Arzúa-Ulloa, Babia y Laciana, Barros, Benasque, Beyos¸Buelles, Burgos, Cabrales, Cáceres, Cádiz, Camerano, Campo Real, Campoo-Los Valles, Casín, Cassoleta, Castellano, Cebreiro, Colmenar Viejo, Flor de Guía, Fresnedillas de la Oliva, Gamonedo, Garrotxa, Gata-Hurdes, Gaztazarra, Genestoso, Gran Canaria, Grazalema, Guriezo, Herreño, Ibores, Idiazábal, L’alt Urgell y La Cerdanya, La Adrada, La Bureba, La Calahorra, La Gomera, La Montaña de León, La Nucía, La Peral, La Serena, La Siberia, La Sierra de Espadán, La Vera, Lanzarote, Letur, Los Montes de Toledo, Mahón-Menorca, Majorero, Málaga, Mallorquí, Manchego, Mató, Miraflores, Montsec, Murcia, Murcia al vino, Nata de Cantabria, Oropesa, Oscos, Ossera, Palmero, Pasiego, Pastor, Pata de mulo, Pedroches. Peñamellera, Picón Bejes-Tresviso, Pido, Quesaílla, Quesucos de Liébana, Requeixo, Roncal, San Simón da Costa, Serrat, Servilleta, Sierra Morena, Tenerife, Teruel, Tetilla, Tiétar, Torremocha del Jarama, Torta del Casar, Trapo, Tronchón, Tupí, Urbiés, Valdeón, Valle de Alcudia, Valle del Narcea, Vidiago, Villalón, Zamorano
There are around 30 more where I’ve found at least one mention but I’ll have to search for each of these individually (once I have the complete list) to see if these cheeses really exist (at least currently) or are just a spurious mention in some online list.
Yo traduzco comida 