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Cheese from Egypt

Mish (Egyptian long-fermented cheese)مش

Mish is one of Egypt's oldest dairy foods. Karish cheese is brined, mostly in an earthenware jar, with extras that can include sour milk, buttermilk, peppers, salt and a portion of old mish that acts as the starter. It pickles with little air for more than a year, and both the sharp, salty cheese and its pickling liquid are eaten.

Fully documentedCheese2 years

Recipe

Mish (Egyptian long-fermented cheese), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Reem Al-Kashif, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No fixed amounts recordedA household recipe with no fixed amounts in the sources; any of the extra ingredients may be left out.
Karish cheeseThe basic raw material[hegab2020]
Sour milk, buttermilk and morta (a by-product of ghee making)[hegab2020]
Green or red pepper, or paprika[hegab2020]
Table salt[hegab2020]
A portion of old mishActs as the starter culture[hegab2020]
Startera portion of old mish

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 years

Start
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What changes: Karish cheese is the starting material

Step 1 of 4
Start from Karish cheese
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactococcus
Streptococcus
Lactobacillus
Leuconostoc
Lactic acid bacteria
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

Mish is one of Egypt's oldest dairy foods. Karish cheese is brined, mostly in an earthenware jar, with extras that can include sour milk, buttermilk, peppers, salt and a portion of old mish that acts as the starter. It pickles with little air for more than a year, and both the sharp, salty cheese and its pickling liquid are eaten. Made in 4 steps over 2 years. The longest step, pickle under the brine, takes at least 12 months (Hegab O.W 2020). Salt is 7.6 % (Hegab O.W 2020). Lactococcus, Streptococcus, Lactobacillus, Leuconostoc and Enterococcus, lactic acid bacteria detected in all three mish samples by 16S sequencing does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepat least 12 monthsReported[hegab2020]Pickle under the brine
Salt7.6 %Measured[hegab2020]Ripen in warm storage

What makes this one different

Mish is not ripened dry like most cheeses. Karish, a soft cheese, is pickled for more than a year in a mostly earthenware container with salt and extras that can include sour milk and peppers, with old mish acting as the starter.

Composition
Market samples averaged 58.70% moisture, 7.56% salt and 0.50 acidity
Eaten
Both the cheese and its pickling liquid

Related ferments

Safety

Market mish in one study carried enterotoxigenic Staphylococcus aureus and pathogenic E. coli, and its authors call for strict hygiene in making and handling. Another study found the highest biogenic amine levels of five Egyptian cheeses in mish, with histamine above the permitted limit.

Hazards the sources name: Enterotoxigenic Staphylococcus aureus; the 6 strains from mish samples carried the seb gene (the sed gene was found in Ras and Domiati strains); Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli O114, isolated from Mish samples.

History and sources

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

Hegab and colleagues call mish one of the oldest indigenous milk products in Egypt.

  1. [hegab2020] Hegab O.W., Abdel-Latif E.F., Moawad A.A. 2020, Isolation of enterotoxigenic Staphylococcus aureus harboring seb gene and enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (serogroups O18, O114, and O125) from soft and hard artisanal cheeses in Egypt, Open Veterinary Journal 10(3):297-307paper
  2. [ma2020] Ma J.K. et al. 2020, Levels of biogenic amines in cheese, correlation to microbial status, dietary intakes, and their health risk assessment, Environmental Science and Pollution Research 27(35):44452-44459 (abstract)paper
  3. [mohamed2022] Mohamed S.M., Nakamura A., Takahashi H., Kuda T., Kimura B. 2022, Microbial safety and biodiversity of bacterial communities in traditional Egyptian cheese types, African Journal of Food Science 16(8):203-214, doi:10.5897/AJFS2022.2214paper