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Cheese from Hungary

Gomolya

Cow, sheep or goat milk is set with a lactic starter and rennet, drained, shaped and salted into a semi-hard cheese with irregular curd holes, eaten fresh or after a short ripening. Shepherds once warmed sheep milk to udder warmth in a kettle, renneted it, pressed the curd in a cloth on a pressing table and dried the cheese in the open air or over a gentle smoke.

Fully documentedCheese7 daysnone; "Gomolya sajt" is defined in the Hungarian Food Codex directive 2-104 on dairy products with a distinctive quality labelFamily: Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe codex sets composition and size, not doses. A cheese weighs at least 250 g and at most 5 kg.
Cow, sheep or goat milk or a mix; may include partly skimmed milk, cream or milk powder[me-2104]
Lactic acid bacteria starter culture[me-2104]
RennetShepherds used dried, spoon or whey rennet made from animal stomach[me-2104][mnl]
Salt[me-2104]
Calcium chloride; potassium or sodium nitrate (optional)Nitrate at most 75 mg/kg of cheese milk, as sodium nitrite[me-2104]
Starterlactic acid bacteria starter culture (codex)

Total time across the recorded steps: 7 days

Start
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What changes: Milk is warmed, then rennet goes in; the codex also names a lactic starter

Step 1 of 5
Warm the milk and set it
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The codex names a lactic starter and rennet, a rennet or mixed rennet-acid set. Shepherds warmed the day's sheep milk in a kettle over a slow fire to udder warmth before renneting.

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

Cow, sheep or goat milk is set with a lactic starter and rennet, drained, shaped and salted into a semi-hard cheese with irregular curd holes, eaten fresh or after a short ripening. Shepherds once warmed sheep milk to udder warmth in a kettle, renneted it, pressed the curd in a cloth on a pressing table and dried the cheese in the open air or over a gentle smoke. Made in 5 steps over 7 days. The longest step, eat fresh or dry briefly, takes at least 7 days (Remete Farkas L. 2019). Salt is 1–2 % (Magyar Élelmiszerkönyv (Codex Alimentarius Hu…).

Key numbers
Main stepat least 7 daysReported[farkas2019]Eat fresh or dry briefly
Salt1–2 %Set[me-2104]Salt

What makes this one different

The codex defines it as a semi-hard, full-fat cheese with irregular holes, made by draining, shaping and salting, and eaten fresh or after a short ripening. In the shepherds' method the curd was drained in a cloth, pressed in a round form and dried in the open air or over a gentle smoke.

Size
Shape and size not fixed; 250 g to 5 kg
Fat
Fat in dry matter 47.5 ± 2.5 g/100 g (45–50)

Related ferments

Safety

The codex allows nitrate in the cheese milk at no more than 75 mg/kg, expressed as sodium nitrite.

History and sources

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

The Hungarian Ethnographic Lexicon describes the same method among Hungarian, Slovak, Carpatho-Ukrainian and Romanian shepherds. Their sheep milk was warmed, renneted, pressed and dried into sajt or gomolya. Balogh (2025) writes that the most common cheese of the Carpathian Basin's rennet cheese-making system is the sheep-milk cheese called gomolya or gömölye, eaten both fresh and mature.

Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
  1. [me-2104] Magyar Élelmiszerkönyv (Codex Alimentarius Hungaricus) directive 2-104, Megkülönböztető minőségi jelöléssel ellátott tejtermékek (Dairy products with distinctive quality indication), 2nd edition 2023, section 2 'Gomolya sajt'spec
  2. [mnl] Magyar Néprajzi Lexikon (Hungarian Ethnographic Lexicon), entry 'juhtej-feldolgozás' (sheep milk processing), online edition at the Hungarian Electronic Library (MEK)book
  3. [farkas2019] Remete Farkas L. 2019, Magyaros és tájjellegű régi tejtermékek (Kárpát-medencei magyaros konyha, vol. XVI), Budapest; Hungarian Electronic Library (MEK), entries on gomolya-túró and gomolya-sajtbook
  4. [balogh2025] Balogh PG. 2025, 'Why are we stuck at the level of gomolya in cheese-making?' The Carpathian Basin Dairy Heritage and Modern Artisanal Cheese-makers, in Báti A, Lysaght P (eds), Living Eating Habits, Revitalized Foodways and the Concepts of Tradition and Food Heritage, ELTE RCH Institute of Ethnology, pp. 219-227book