#urdă

Magenta's favorite cheese is Urdă.

Scything and building haystacks is not exactly something you'd think to put on a contemporary CV, agree? Yet there are these Romanians trying to scratch a living with more or less traditional methods while the whole world around them seems generations ahead. Many of them went abroad, to Spain or Italy or even farther away to earn better money, and they mostly managed just that until the crisis hit everybody hard. Construction sites closed, manufactures shut down, agriculture couldn't occupy them all and the Romanians started to come back... to what? Even townspeople started to retreat to the countryside, not exactly happy with it but still very proud with what they re-learned to produce. Their small and dark spotted apples might be unable to compete visually with the industrial products found on the usual counters, and probably wouldn't give the highly liked full colors Instagram picture. Their only virtue is their taste: simply great and you can take my daughter's word for it. The plums our kids picked from the small tree were also great, so we thought we'd sit and have a quick bite on the remote garden of our relatives we just visited. Right there, in the sticks, why not. But what to bite? Our cousin remembered she has in the trunk a slab (or two) of bacon-mostly-lard, the neighbor overheard us and jumped in with a loaf of bread and harsh wine of his own making, the uncle we just visited contributed with a fine bottle of high spirit - also home made, add to the mix some onions and garlic we found in the cabin and... only a fire was missing from the picture, but not for long. Kids gathered twigs and dried wood and whatever was around so there we went, feasting on tasty unhealthy nice stuff prepared (deeply burned, that is) on a quick fire under the trees full of summer fruit. There's no real beer in this picture (alcohol-free not counting); the local traditional crafts are proudly represented by the strong spirit burned by this uncle. With 52-53 ABV it's not for the faint at heart. Fruity aroma, with the specific small but lasting bubbles, the pure plums "tzuica" warms you from within and works just great paired with this fresh white cheese speciality called "urda".