For 2 months now, there has been no cheese in Bukoba. The woman at the dairy has come to recognize me and as I enter the door, she shakes her head and says "wiki ijayo" or "next week". This ritual is repeated almost every week, and there has yet to be any cheese. With a craving for cheese, I decided in the past 2 weeks to try to make my own soft cheese. Attempt number 1 yielded a frightfully smelly mess, a soupy mixture with a bitter flavor that no amount of herbs could hide. However, before giving up for good, I decided to give it one last try.
I placed the milk in a plastic pitcher for 2 days to separate and get lumpy. This mixture was drained through a piece of blue and white floral kanga in a sieve. I watched as the clear yellow whey drained slowly through the cloth into the container below. Just for good measure, I left the curds to drain in the fridge overnight, and the following morning I had a cloth full of goat cheese like curds in my cloth. Flipping them out into a bowl, I realized that this was a very unique cheese, for, I had unknowingly imprinted blue flowers on the bottom of my curds. It is slightly ironic that I picked the white and blue kanga because I thought a blue dye less likely to run that a red or pink fabric. Despite the fact that my cheese was blue, and after adding some margarine, garlic, chives, and dill, I had a fairly tasty cheese spread that is perfect for toast. Hopefully it will tide me over until Bukoba's only cheese - gouda - returns again.
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| The cheese curds after draining - notice the tasteful and artistically placed flowers... |
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