We cannot imagine a celebration in Croatia without great cheese from Pag
It’s no secret island Pag has the best cheeses in Croatia, but according to the Culture Cheese Magazine, Paška Sirana (Pag cheese plant) also produces one of the best cheeses in the world.
Their cheese Dalmatinac made the magazine’s ultimate list “75 Best cheeses of the year” and here’s what they had to say about this exceptional Croatian product:
Paška Sirana has been turning out traditional Croatian cheeses such as Paški Sir, as well as inventive spinoffs like mixed-milk Dalmatinac, for decades. But starting with the construction of a new cheese making facility in 2008 using European Union pre-accession funds, the company began exporting for the first time. Slowly, Dalmatinac is becoming a household name in Europe and beyond, winning accolades in the process (a Super Gold at the 2014 World Cheese Awards, for one).
The milk used to make this cheese comes from animals that spend their days on Pag, an island in the Adriatic Sea. Pag is so rocky—and its vegetation so sparse—that upon arrival, “You have a feeling that you came to the moon . . . and you wonder what these animals eat?” says Marina Pernar Škunca, Paška Sirana’s head of marketing.
Luckily, “these sheep are super animals,” Škunca adds. Small and resistant, they produce milk that reflects the essence of the island, with its aromatic herbs and salt blown in from the sea by winter wind called bura.
FLAVORS: Salt, cream, sweet, herbal
PERFECT PAIRING: Croatians set out this cheese as an appetizer alongside traditional cured meats: Dalmatian prosciutto and Slavonian spicy cured sausage, also known as kulen.
