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Cheese from Lebanon, north

Darfiyeh

Raw goat milk is left to sour for 24–48 hours, set with rennet at 35 °C, moulded, drained and salted. The curd is layered with salt and arichi, a curd cooked out of the whey at 90 °C, inside a cleaned and salted goat skin (dariff). The closed skin is salted outside and ripens 1–6 months in a damp natural cave.

Fully documentedCheese43 days – 6.5 monthsFamily: Skin- and pot-ripened cheese family (Tulum, Çömlek)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedFarm practice varies by village and has no fixed amounts; the steps follow the common method recorded by Hosri and El Khoury.
Raw goat milk[hosri2004][serhan2009]
Rennet[hosri2004]
Arichi, curd recovered by heating the whey[hosri2004]
Salt, for the curd and the skin[hosri2004]
A whole goat skin (dariff), cleaned, salted and shorn[hosri2004]
Starternone added; the raw milk's own lactic bacteria

Total time across the recorded steps: 43 days – 6.5 months

Start
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Close-up: salt moving into a piece

What changes: A whole goat skin is cleaned and salted inside to make the dariff

Step 1 of 7
Prepare the goat skin
Time
12 days
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
S. thermophilus
Enterococcus faecium
Lactococcus lactis

The skin is scraped free of salt, the legs are tied, it is blown up to check for holes and the neck is shorn.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Raw goat milk is left to sour for 24–48 hours, set with rennet at 35 °C, moulded, drained and salted. The curd is layered with salt and arichi, a curd cooked out of the whey at 90 °C, inside a cleaned and salted goat skin (dariff). The closed skin is salted outside and ripens 1–6 months in a damp natural cave. Made in 7 steps over 43 days – 6.5 months. The longest step, close the skin and ripen in a cave, takes 30 days – 6 months (Hosri C 2004). Lactic acid bacteria of the raw milk, including Streptococcus thermophilus, Enterococcus faecium, E. durans, E. faecalis, Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis and subsp. cremoris, Lactobacillus plantarum and L. curvatus does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step30 days – 6 monthsReported[hosri2004]Close the skin and ripen in a cave
Temperature35 °CReported[hosri2004]Set with rennet

What makes this one different

Ripened in a whole goat skin with layers of arichi, a whey curd, and salted from the outside in a cave; the milk is soured for a day or two before renneting.

Milk
Raw goat milk from extensive mountain herds
Ripening
1 to 6 months in the skin, in a natural cave
Keeping
A 2004 project paper gives a storage life of 6 months to 1 year, so farmers sell it out of season

Related ferments

Safety

The milk is raw and the steps are not standardised. One study found E. coli and Clostridium in the cheese, and the project authors list poor milking hygiene, long exposure of raw milk to air and poorly cleaned skins as the main faults.

Hazards the sources name: Escherichia coli and Clostridium sp./Eubacterium tenue, detected in the cheese.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Made for a long time by farm women in the North Lebanon mountains, where the father, often a butcher, supplied the goat skins. A development project described in 2004 set out to make it more hygienic and bring it to market.

  1. [hosri2004] Hosri C., El Khoury N. 2004, Valoriser le fromage de chèvre traditionnel "Darfiyeh" pour aider au développement de la région montagnarde nord libanaise, in Dubeuf J.-P. (ed.), Options Méditerranéennes Série A n. 61, CIHEAM, Zaragoza, pp. 201–206paper
  2. [serhan2009] Serhan M., Cailliez-Grimal C., Borges F., Revol-Junelles A.M., Hosri C., Fanni J. 2009, Bacterial diversity of Darfiyeh, a Lebanese artisanal raw goat's milk cheese, Food Microbiology 26(6):645–652 (abstract)paper
  3. [serhan2010] Serhan M., Linder M., Hosri C., Fanni J. 2010, Changes in proteolysis and volatile fraction during ripening of Darfiyeh, a Lebanese artisanal raw goat's milk cheese, Small Ruminant Research 90(1–3):75–82 (abstract)paper