Nøkkelost facts for kids
Nøkkelost is a special kind of cheese from Norway. Its name means "key cheese" in Norwegian. It's also known as kuminost, which means "cumin cheese." This cheese gets its unique taste from spices like cumin and cloves.
Nøkkelost is a semi-hard cheese, which means it's not super soft like cream cheese, but not super hard like Parmesan either. It's usually yellow and made from cow's milk. You can find it shaped like big wheels or blocks. After it's made, it needs to ripen for about three months to get its full flavor. This ripening time is called the "maturation period."
The Story Behind the Name
Nøkkelost is quite similar to a Dutch cheese called Nagelkaas. Nagelkaas means "nail cheese" in Dutch, because of the nail-like shape of the cloves used in it.
There are a couple of ideas about how Nøkkelost got its name:
- One idea is that the Norwegian name "Nøkkelost" sounds a bit like the Dutch "Nagelkaas." Sometimes, words that sound similar but have different meanings in different languages are called "false cognates." So, "key cheese" might have come from "nail cheese" just because they sound alike.
- Another idea connects Nøkkelost to a Dutch cheese called Leyden cheese, which has been around since the 1600s. Leyden cheese comes from the city of Leiden in the Netherlands. The city of Leiden has a "key" on its coat of arms (its official symbol). Since Nøkkelost is a factory-made version of a similar cheese, the Norwegian word nøkkel (meaning "key") might be a nod to Leiden's key symbol.
Nøkkelost in Other Countries
Nøkkelost wasn't just popular in Norway. In the 1960s, a version of this cheese was made and sold in the United States. The company Kraft Foods first called it "Caraway" cheese. Later, they changed the label to "Kuminost Spiced Cheese" to better describe its flavor.
