Moldova’s “queen of cheeses”: A traditional delicacy you can make at home

Brânza scoaptă is presented as one of Romania’s most distinctive traditional cheeses, a delicate preparation made from cow’s milk and associated especially with the Moldovan region. It can be served on its own, but it also forms the basis of traditional sweets, pastries and other Romanian dishes.

The cheese belongs to a much older pastoral tradition. Sheep farming and cattle raising supported Romanian communities for more than a millennium, while processing milk evolved from a way to preserve food into an inherited craft. Different regions developed their own methods, shaped by local climates and by mountain or lowland pastures.

The seasonal movement of sheep flocks, known as transhumance, helped spread recipes while preserving local variations. Brânza scoaptă is made mainly in Moldova, including the area across the Prut in the Republic of Moldova. Transylvania has a related version known as scoacă.

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It is a flavor in the milk that you cannot help falling in love with.

Botoșani County is described as one of Romania’s most important dairy areas and is widely known as a “land of milk.” The county has several important concentrations of dairy cattle farmers and production facilities, including traditional ones. The Bahlui Valley is especially associated with dairy production, and a type of cheese from the area has received European recognition.

In many Botoșani villages, dairy cattle underpin the local economy. More than 100,000 cattle are kept in the county, while agricultural areas produce feed for them. Viorel Șvabu, a cheese producer from Săveni, attributes the area’s distinctive milk to the pasture vegetation. “It is a flavor in the milk that you cannot help falling in love with,” he said. “It is the flavor of the plants in the pasture, which give the milk a special taste.”

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It is the flavor of the plants in the pasture, which give the milk a special taste.