Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
: "key cheese") is a common,
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
name for kuminost ("cumin cheese"), a
cheese
Cheese is a dairy product produced in wide ranges of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats, or sheep. During productio ...
clove
Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, ''Syzygium aromaticum'' (). They are native to the Maluku Islands (or Moluccas) in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice, flavoring or fragrance in consumer products, ...
milk
Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modulat ...
, in the shape of wheels or blocks, with a maturation period of three months.
Nøkkelost cheese is similar to the Dutch cheese, Nagelkaas, which is itself an unprotected name variant of
kanterkaas
Kanterkaas is a Dutch yellow cheese made from cow's milk. Apart from the plain variety, there is Kanterkomijnekaas which is flavored with cumin and Kanternagelkaas flavored with both cumin and cloves. ''Kanter'' is Dutch for 'edge' and refers t ...
. There are differing theories on the origin of the Norwegian name. The most likely is that it is a
false cognate
False cognates are pairs of words that seem to be cognates because of similar sounds and meaning, but have different etymologies; they can be within the same language or from different languages, even within the same family. For example, the Eng ...
in Norwegian of the Dutch ''Nagelkaas'', which translates to "nail cheese", owing to the nail-like shape of the cloves. Another theory is that as a factory-made variation of the Dutch
Leyden cheese
Leyden, from nl, Leidse kaas, is a semi-hard, cumin and caraway seed flavoured cheese made in the Netherlands from cow's milk. It is made both in factories and on farms, historically in the Leiden area.
''Leidse kaas'' is the most common type ...
, which has its origins in the 17th century, the Norwegian ''nøkkel'' (meaning "key") is a reference to
Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration w ...
's coat of arms.
There was a version of Nøkkelost manufactured and marketed in the US throughout the 1960s.
Kraft Foods
The second incarnation of Kraft Foods is an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. in 2012 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz in 2015.
A merger with Heinz, arran ...
List of cheeses
This is a list of cheeses by place of origin. Cheese is a milk-based food that is produced in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms. Hundreds of types of cheese from various countries are produced. Their styles, textures and flavors dep ...
*
List of Norwegian cheeses
This is a list of cheeses from, or connected with, Norway.
Brunost cheeses
A caramelized brown Norwegian whey cheese. Brunost (brown cheese) is commonly used instead of mysost (whey cheese). It is regarded as one of Norway's most iconic foodstuffs ...