Exploring the Cheeses of Our Ancestors - Part 4: Qurt

I normally reserve this series for cheesy history that goes waaaaay back in time. Today, I will share a story I have only recently heard, and it has stuck in my mind for days. Not based on artifacts from archeological digs, but rather on an eye-witness account, this tale took place in the late 1930s and involves a hard, round ball of cheese called qurt.

Qurt (also spelled qurut or kurt, and roughly translating to “dry” or “more than dry”) is a hard cheese made from the milk of pretty much any dairy animal, fermented, strained until dry enough to roll into balls, and allowed to dry until hardened. Variations on qurt exist throughout Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Kazakh historian Moldir Oskenbay traced qurt’s history all the way back to the seventh century, when Scythians roamed the Eurasian Steppe. It’s been called the original travel snack! The hard balls of cheese could be eaten as-is, dissolved in hot water for a beverage, or mixed into soups. Cosmonauts have even taken qurt into space. Properly stored, qurt won’t spoil (although if exposed to moisture or humidity, it will grow moldy) and reportedly will last for several years, but will get very, very hard over time.

givemegoats.com — Location of ALZHIR gulag

Now, here is the tale that led me on my journey to make qurt:

During the 1930s, Josef Stalin built many gulags. He built a gulag outside of the city of Astana in the smaller town of Akmol. Akmola Labor Camp for Wives of Traitors to the Motherland, known by the acronym ALZHIR, was one of several gulags built to house the wives and children of men who were accused of betraying the Soviet Union. Imagine, you could be arrested and sent to hard labor for simply being related to someone who was only accused of speaking out against their government! (I pray we never see those days in our country… ) As if being taken far away from your home, having your menfolk murdered, and your children taken from you wasn’t bad enough, the environment was chosen to be demoralizing as well. The weather was harsh in Akmol. Temperatures reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer, but in the winter the temperatures could drop to 40 below zero. Inmates were made to work 16 to 20 hour daily shifts and were given little food to eat. ALZHIR operated from the 1930s until the mid-1950s, but even after their release from prison, the women were not permitted to return to their home towns.

giveagirlagoat.com — Women prisoners at Akmola. Exact date and photo credit unknown.

In 1938, a woman named Gertrude Platais was arrested by the Soviets and sent to ALZHIR. While she worked with other women prisoners in the frigid weather, gathering reeds to heat the freezing barracks, Kazakh villagers – the elderly and children – would appear, day after day, to throw stones at the imprisoned women and call them names. The guards were delighted! They also taunted the women – ‘See? You’re not hated only in Moscow, but even the weakest of the villagers hate you too.’ It was a further blow to the already starving, overworked, heartbroken women.

Decades later, Gertrude told her story during a visit to the ALZHIR museum. She recounted that as she was working in the cold, gathering reeds on the shore of the nearby lake, she stumbled and fell, and happened to fall onto some of these stones. To her surprise, the “stones” smelled of milk or cottage cheese. She put some of these “stones” into her pocket, suspecting that they were edible. Back at the barracks, some Kazakh prisoners explained that these were not stones, but were a traditional storage food called qurt, packed with protein and calcium.

The empathetic villagers had thought of a way to deceive the prison guards and deliver life-saving nutrition to the prisoners right under the guards’ noses. Thanks to their thoughtfulness, the life expectancy of prisoners at Akmola was longer than that of prisoners in other gulags.

Because early cheeses are a hobby of mine, when it came time to make my qurt, I noticed many similarities in the process to other types of cheeses. The first step in making qurt is to make qatiq, which is made like yogurt. Then it is drained like twaróg. Finally it is rolled and dried similarly to Belper knolle. As I researched, I found variations on the qurt recipe, and as stated before, many cultures in Central Asia have their own unique style. One person suggested that qurt could be made from twaróg, and since I already had some milk fermenting for twaróg, I decided to make a batch from it. I will also be making a batch as close as I’m able to the most generic recipe I could find. Then I can see which kind I like best!

To make qurt, you will need:

One half gallon of milk (I’m using raw goat milk)
6 tablespoons of active-culture yogurt (I used Chobani Greek style plain but homemade is probably best)
salt to taste
any herbs or spices that you like for rolling the qurt (optional)
cloth for straining cheese (cheesecloth is too open in the weave – I like to use cotton handkerchiefs)

If you are using twaróg to make qurt, skip these first two steps and proceed to the third step.

Heat the milk and add the yogurt

Heat the milk to about 120 degrees. This is a little warmer than is comfortable to keep your clean finger in for very long, so if you don’t have a thermometer, heat the milk until you are unable to keep your finger in it for more than about 10 seconds. The recipe I’m using suggests boiling raw milk and then allowing it to cool down to 120 degrees. I did not heat my milk but rather took the warm, filtered milk straight from the goat and mixed in the yogurt starter. If you are in any way in doubt about the quality of your milk, I would encourage you to heat your milk. I eventually tried it both ways, and had a better outcome with my straight-from-the-goat batch – but I am quite confident of the quality of my goat milk. Use your own discretion. When the milk is up to temperature, turn off the heat and stir in the yogurt. Pour the milk/yogurt mixture into clean jars, wrap in several layers of towels or blankets to help it keep its tempurature, and allow it to ferment for 8 – 10 hours or until thickened but still pourable. Now you have a drinkable yogurt called qatiq. You can drink a bit now for a treat and proceed to step 2 with the rest.

Strain the qatiq to make suzma

You will need a fairly tightly-woven cloth to drain your qatiq, and if you are using cheesecloth, you’ll need to use several layers. The qatiq will be able to run right through a loose weave. I used a clean white cotton handkerchief, which is my cloth of choice for straining cheeses.

Carefully pour the qatiq into a cloth-lined strainer, and allow the qatiq to drain until it is very thick. You can tie the corners of the cloth and hang it over a bowl to allow the qatiq to drain faster. This will take a while. One recipe said two days, but mine took four days – your results might vary. Once or twice a day, use a spoon to scrape down the thickened qatiq, which is becoming the thick, spreadable treat called suzma. Scraping down the sides of the cloth and stirring the suzma will encourage more whey to be separated out. I loved scraping down the suzma so that I could lick the spoon. Suzma is similar to, but almost better than, a lovely sour cream. It’s not terribly sour, and I found it refreshing with just the right amount of tang. When the suzma is thick enough to form into balls, you’re ready to roll and dry your qurt.

Form the suzma into balls

Now that you have thickened suzma (or when your twaróg is ready, if you are using it), now is the time to salt it to taste. You can add other herbs and spices at this point as well, or save them to roll the qurt in before leaving it to dry.

When your suzma is thick enough to hold its shape, dampen your fingers to reduce stickiness, and roll the suzma into balls. I found I had best results with fully-wet palms and fingers. Some recipes say to roll them the size of walnuts, some say to roll them the size of marbles. It’s up to you, but remember that the larger the ball, the longer it takes to dry.

Traditionally, the qurt would be left outdoors to dry in the hot sun for several days until they become hard. That isn’t an option for most people, and not everyone lives where the days and nights are hot enough to dry out the cheese. I’ve seen recipes recommending leaving them in a sunny windowsill, or using a hair dryer to heat them once or twice for a few minutes each day, or to just leave them on a kitchen countertop and keep an eye on them. I went with the kitchen countertop route, turning my qurt every day to help them dry evenly.

By the fourth day, the qurt I made with twaróg had dried to a firm crust with a slightly rubbery yet grainy interior. The crust crumbled easily when I broke one open with my fingers. When I tasted it, the first impression was of dryness, then of a slightly salty sourness which wasn’t altogether unpleasant, and then the flavor of the twaróg came through as the cheese softened up in my mouth. Two weeks later, though, it was very hard and had such a sour twang I didn’t want to eat it. I don’t think I’ll make it that way again.

However, at four days, the qurt I made by going through the steps of qatik and suzma was much tastier. The texture was more like an aged cheese, and the mouthfeel was quite nice. My first impression was a butteriness, but at the second bite, I realized it wasn’t so much buttery as it was a creamy yogurt or sour cream vibe coming through. I like these qurt very much and have decided to make more – but a double batch next time!

Two weeks later, this qurt was also quite hard, but not too hard to bite – more like a grana style cheese in texture. In appearance, I can easily see how it could be mistaken for a rock being thrown, especially if it had a sprinkling of pepper or some other spice to help further the illusion. It’s quite delicious and I would be glad to have it if I were camping or on a long car trip, for an easy high-protein snack or to round out a backpacking meal.

If you give a girl a goat…

you never know what might happen.