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Fermented milk from Ukrainian Carpathians

Huslyankaгуслянка

Huslyanka is the thick sour milk of the Hutsuls in the Ukrainian Carpathians. Milk is boiled, cooled to warm and poured into a wooden pail that held the last batch, or a clay pot with walls smeared with sour cream, then wrapped and left to set. Made at the end of the summer pasture season, it was kept through winter, when it sharpened and turned into a soft cheese.

Fully documentedFermented milk10 h – 24 h

Recipe

Huslyanka, a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Samurai2593, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No fixed amounts recordedHousehold method with no fixed amounts.
MilkCow, sheep or buffalo milk of local Carpathian breeds; rich late-season milk[ark-ua2022]
Sour cream, or the last huslyanka left in the pailThe starter[ark-ua2022][wp-uk]
Starterbackslop: the pail keeps the last huslyanka, or the pot walls are smeared with sour cream

Total time across the recorded steps: 10 h – 24 h

Start
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30–40 °C

What changes: The milk is boiled and cooled to 30–40 °C

Step 1 of 4
Boil the milk and cool it
Time
Not documented
Temperature
30–40 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria

Output: warm boiled milk.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

boiling kills the milk's own flora

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

Huslyanka is the thick sour milk of the Hutsuls in the Ukrainian Carpathians. Milk is boiled, cooled to warm and poured into a wooden pail that held the last batch, or a clay pot with walls smeared with sour cream, then wrapped and left to set. Made at the end of the summer pasture season, it was kept through winter, when it sharpened and turned into a soft cheese. Made in 4 steps over 10 h – 24 h. The longest step, cover, wrap and leave to set, takes 10–24 h (Zocchi D.M 2022).

Key numbers
Main step10–24 hReported[ark-ua2022]Cover, wrap and leave to set
Temperature30–40 °CReported[ark-ua2022][wp-uk]Boil the milk and cool it

What makes this one different

Like matsoni and katyk it is boiled milk seeded from the last batch. Huslyanka is made at the end of the summer pasture season and kept for months in a wooden pail, so it ages from a thick sour milk into a soft cheese by New Year.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Tatar katyk (Hutsul usage)Huslyanka made from baked (pryazhene) milk.
  • Buffalo huslyanka (buffalo kefir)Carpathian buffalo milk left at 25–30 °C for 24 hours.

Safety

The milk is boiled before it is seeded, and the souring keeps it through a cold winter.

History and sources

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

Ukrainian Wikipedia says huslyanka has been known since at least the 19th century. The Ark of Taste entry for Ukraine (Zocchi et al. 2022) says the Hutsuls held that Carpathian molfars (folk healers) invented it, while another version credits high-mountain shepherds; it adds that Hutsuls traditionally preferred it to ordinary sour milk (kyslyak), and that only a few keepers of the tradition still make it, for their own use.

Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
  1. [ark-ua2022] Zocchi D.M., Motuzenko O., Striamets N., Fontefrancesco M.F., Sõukand R., Pieroni A. (eds) 2022, Ковчег смаку. Україна (Ark of Taste, Ukraine), University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo, ISBN 9791280673015, pp. 37, 39, 95 (archived copy)book
  2. [wp-uk] uk.wikipedia, Гуслянкаwiki
  3. [zn] Dzerkalo Tyzhnia (zn.ua), Смачна Гуцульщинаweb