The cheese is part of the culture and tradition of the Canary Islands, being one of the emblematic products of our gastronomy appearing in all kinds of recipes.
The art of cheesemaking has been passed on from parents to children to the present day, making it one of the most solid and most projected industries on the islands.
The cheese masters make the cheese combining modernity and tradition, respecting traditional methods without losing sight of the new demands on food safety.
The use of raw milk, the enzymatic coagulation system, or the different toppings (cheeses are greased with oil, gofio, paprika, flour ...) and smoked are characteristic features of the Canarian cheese tradition. For smokiness, vegetable by-products originating from the Canarian mountains are used, such as jara, heather, fig tree trunk, almond shells, pinocha etc.
The Canaries have an excellent cattle herd for the elaboration of their cheeses, three races of goat, one of sheep and one of cow, all native, although, the majority of the cheeses are made with goat's milk conferring them a marked personality.
Goat's milk of the Canarian races is of high quality and is more beneficial to health than other milks, according to various scientific studies. It has more essential nutrients, less fat and lactose, it is more digestive, high content of essential fatty acids, rich in calcium and phosphorus, vitamins A, B, D etc.
As a curiosity, did you know that Canarias is the Spanish community with the highest production and consumption of goat cheese? We love the canaries! The annual consumption of cheese in general, not only of goat, exceeds in more than four kilos to the national average.
On the island of La Gomera, the herds are almost entirely integrated by goats and, to a lesser extent, by sheep. We have a great variety of endemic plants that serve as diet to the cattle herd of the island. This food plays an important role in the richness of aromas and flavors that resembled in their cheeses.
Its elaboration is handmade using raw milk of goat and sometimes mixed with milk of sheep. Their cheeses usually measure between 10 and 15 cm in diameter and weigh from 1 to 2 kilos. They have a smooth, hard outer ocher and yellow ocher color, and in the smoking process wood and / or heba firewood and / or tabaiba are usually used.
Being smoked is a common denominator of gomero cheese. Each cheese-maker has a characteristic form of smoking, for example in the village of Ayamosna there is a dairy that smokes with heather, in Chejelipes some uses the dry tajalague of the palm of the palm tree and a little green jara, another uses a formula of Heather, tabaiba and jara ...
The characteristics of the cheese and its taste vary according to its cure. On the one hand we have the fresh cheeses smoked with a soft and delicate flavor and on the other hand, the intense aroma and spicy taste of cheeses very cured, smoked and also used for the preparation of almogrote.
If you want to visit some dairy and take one of these fantastic cheeses gomeros you have to know that most of the dairies are concentrated in Alajeró and San Sebastián de la Gomera, although in the whole island you can buy and taste them and our hotel could not be less.
We wish you and a good tasting of cheese from La Gomera!