During the Spanish conquest in Ecuador, products, European customs, and Creole recipes merged. This is how the Ecuadorian tradition of artisanal products such as quesillo emerged—a fresh white cheese that is packaged and can be consumed immediately, with unique characteristics that distinguish it. It has no rind, its texture is compact, firm but slightly elastic. It is produced throughout the year because it does not mature. It is presented in elongated, flat slabs approximately 30-60 cm long and 10-15 cm wide, weighing between 300 and 800 grams per piece. This cheese is served as a dessert accompanied by honey, fig jam, etc.
The ancestral origin of quesillo
Eleven thousand years BC, the inhabitants of Europe and the Middle East had already learned the value of livestock and domesticated bovines called aurochs. They milked and stored their milk in leather bags (made from animal stomachs) and wooden containers. To heat the milk, they placed stones previously heated over fire. Legend has it that once, a curious shepherd tested the uniform curdled mass of milk that often formed due to natural enzymes remaining in the leather bags after being stored there for some time. That shepherd liked the mass, discarded the whey (the transparent liquid that distills from the curdled milk) and studied how to produce the curd regularly, thus the cheese-making industry was born. Just like in Imperial Rome and before it, cheese was popular in Greece, and it is said that Penelope, the symbol of marital fidelity in the Odyssey, besides weaving and unweaving her endless loom waiting for Ulysses, entertained herself by making delicious cheeses for friends and relatives. The truth is, gradually, the fame of cheese spread everywhere, often with the help of European monasteries, whose monks had a weakness for gastronomy. The word “cheese” comes from the Latin caseus. The French fromage has its origin in the Greek word formos, which was used to refer to the wicker basket in which the whey was removed from the cheese in Greece. There are countless varieties of cheese, but fresh cheeses (like quesillo and its derivatives) are made solely by curdling and dehydrating the milk. This practice became a tradition for Ecuadorians.
Preparing quesillo with cow’s milk
A part of the cow’s udder is taken, washed, salted to form a sort of bag, and dried in the shade or sun. Once dry, it is placed in warm water and soaked for several hours until the water turns dark brown, indicating that the rennet acid is ready to cut the milk. Fresh cow’s milk is then added to the rennet, which begins to resemble yogurt. It is mixed with a wooden spoon, and the mixture is shaped into thick strips, then allowed to settle, forming the curd: the solid part of the milk (the liquid part is whey). Once settled, the curd is removed and placed in another container for aging; the duration depends on the ambient temperature. When the curd has matured, it is cooked in boiling water with added salt and pieces of curd are placed into the pot. After boiling, the pieces are removed and placed on a tray, forming small balls. These are placed on a cloth over a semi-suspended table at each end of the cloth. Then, the cloth is stretched, forming each quesillo unit.
Quesillo or fresh cheese, delicious for breakfast or tea, has the great advantage of being much lower in fats than traditional cheese.
