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Cheese from North-west Iran

MotalՄոթալ

Raw sheep or goat milk is set with rennet, the curd is pressed in cloth, crumbled and salted, then packed tight into a prepared sheepskin (in Iran) or into terracotta pots (in Armenia). Sealed in the skin or pot, it ripens for months, slowly souring into a crumbly, salty, acidic cheese.

Fully documentedCheese3.1 monthsnone (Slow Food Presidium in Armenia)Family: Skin- and pot-ripened cheese family (Tulum, Çömlek)

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe sources give no fixed batch size. The amounts here come from one university study (Rezaei et al. 2020) that made the cheese in a laboratory at Tabriz University, with fungal rennet.
Raw sheep milkTraditional Iranian Motal uses no added starter[azizi2017][rezaei2020]
RennetFungal rennet at 0.01 g per litre in one lab study; calf rennet in Armenia[rezaei2020][slowfood-motal]
Salt30 g per kg of curdMixed into the crushed curd at 30 g/kg in one lab version of the Iranian method[rezaei2020]
Prepared sheepskin (Iran) or terracotta pot sealed with beeswax (Armenia)[rezaei2020][slowfood-motal]
Mountain herbsArmenian Motal; the crumbled curd is seasoned with mountain herbs[slowfood-motal]
Starterspontaneous (raw-milk flora), plus rennet

Total time across the recorded steps: 3.1 months

Start
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What changes: Starting material: raw sheep milk, used without any added culture

Step 1 of 7
Take raw sheep milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactobacilli
L. plantarum
L. casei
Yeasts

Traditional Iranian Motal uses raw sheep milk with no added starter culture.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Raw sheep or goat milk is set with rennet, the curd is pressed in cloth, crumbled and salted, then packed tight into a prepared sheepskin (in Iran) or into terracotta pots (in Armenia). Sealed in the skin or pot, it ripens for months, slowly souring into a crumbly, salty, acidic cheese. Made in 7 steps over 3.1 months. The longest step, move to the final skin and ripen, takes 3 months (Rezaei A 2020) and runs at 6–12 °C (Rezaei A 2020). Salt is 3 % (Rezaei A 2020). Lactobacilli of raw-milk Motal does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step3 monthsReported[rezaei2020]Move to the final skin and ripen
Temperature6–12 °CReported[rezaei2020]Move to the final skin and ripen
Salt3 %Reported[rezaei2020]Crumble and salt
AciditypH 5.3 → 4.71Measured[rezaei2020]Move to the final skin and ripen

What makes this one different

Motal is crumbled, salted curd packed into a skin bag or a sealed pot and ripened as one mass, not as whole wheels. Armenian Motal is seasoned with mountain herbs and ripens in terracotta under beeswax; Iranian Motal ripens in sheepskin.

Milk
Raw sheep milk (Iran) or goat milk (Armenia)
Vessel
Sheepskin bag (Iran) or terracotta pot sealed with beeswax (Armenia)
Ripening
3 months in one Iranian lab study; Slow Food says Armenian Motal can age for over six months

Related ferments

Variants

  • Armenian Motal (Gegharkunik)Pure goat milk set with calf rennet straight after milking, pressed in cloth about 15 minutes, held in brine at least 40 days, crumbled with mountain herbs, packed into terracotta pots for 35–50 days, then sealed with beeswax and kept on ashes in cold cellars.
  • Iranian sheepskin MotalRaw sheep milk without starter, ripened in sheepskin bags.

Safety

Traditional Motal is made from raw milk without a starter, and one survey found Staphylococcus aureus in half its samples. ANSES advises pregnant women, young children, people over 65 and people with weak immunity not to eat raw-milk cheeses other than hard cooked ones.

Hazards the sources name: Staphylococcus aureus (found in 3 of 6 traditional samples, up to 9 × 10^3 CFU/g).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

In north-west Iran, Motal is made without a starter from raw milk and ripened in a sheepskin bag by long-standing local farmers' experience. Traditional producers use sheepskin for its ease of preparation, availability, affordability and good permeability (Rezaei 2020). In Armenia, Motal is an age-old cheese of goat shepherds; keeping food in terracotta goes back at least 5,000 years, and families still keep goat cheese in pots for themselves. Slow Food made Armenian Motal a Presidium to help its makers.

  1. [rezaei2020] Rezaei A., Alirezalu K., Azadmard Damirchi S., Hesari J., Papademas P., Domínguez R., Lorenzo J.M., Yaghoubi M. 2020, Effect of pasteurization and ripening temperature on chemical and sensory characteristics of traditional Motal cheese, Fermentation 6(4):95 (copy in the Cyprus University of Technology repository)paper
  2. [azizi2017] Azizi F., Habibi Najafi M.B., Edalatian Dovom M.R. 2017, The biodiversity of Lactobacillus spp. from Iranian raw milk Motal cheese and antibacterial evaluation based on bacteriocin-encoding genes, AMB Express 7:176paper
  3. [slowfood-motal] Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, Presidium « Motal » (Armenia, Gegharkunik)web
  4. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov