Romania, cheese

Buffalo milk Cascaval, cascaval din lapte de bivol

There is no native buffalo breed in Romania; they came to Romania from South Asia via Turkey and Bulgaria in the Middle Ages. Transylvania favored buffalo breeding as it is a damp, hilly region more suited to livestock than the flat, dry plains of southern Romania.

Buffalo were kept by Saxon farmers in southeastern Transylvania for their milk, their meat and their use as draft animals. In some villages there were more buffalo than cattle, often hundreds in a typical village of 200-300 households. However, the number of buffalo has fallen sharply – first under communism and then due to the current agricultural recession and departure of many Saxons to Germany. A few farmers still rear buffalo and produce buffalo products, but the relative difficulty of milking them, and the lack of bulls (once the numbers fell, the villages no longer kept their own bulls) means that many villages that have had buffalo for hundreds of years now have none at all.

Buffalo milk has twice the fat content of cow milk (about 9-10% as compared to 4.5-5% fat) and is favored for a variety of cheese product because its taste and texture is superior to cow milk.

Cascaval is a hard cheese with a stringy mozzarella consistency (like true Italian mozzarella), and is sometimes plaited into long decorative cheese shapes. It is made of whole milk in the summer months when the buffalo are grazing.

Buffalo are milked at home in the courtyards of their owners in the morning and evening. They are very particular about being milked, and will not yield milk at times. Buffalo can be aggressive to strangers. Locals say that the shorter and more curved the horns of the buffalo, the gentler and better milking animals they are.

In summer, the buffalo go out with the village herd each morning after milking to graze communally and walk back into their courtyards in the evening.

Their masters scythe fresh grass every day for their evening feed and bring it home by horse and cart. The hay meadows that surround each village are probably the richest and most extensive flowered grasslands remaining in Europe today.

In winter the buffalo are fed on the hay from the same meadows. Milk yields are considerably lower in winter.

Smantana, Telemea and Branza, the area’s buffalo milk products, are much appreciated for their flavor, which owes its quality to the flower- and herb-rich diet of the buffalo, and the freshness and homemade nature of the product. The Saxons especially prized buffalo, and would eat sour cream (Smantana) and butter only made from buffalo milk – it is very white, compared to yellower cow milk, and richer. 

Linking buffalo milk products to the medieval hay meadows of Transylvania and its flower-rich biodiversity should attract a premium price if properly marketed. Better prices and a wider interest in buffalo products could help the buffalo survive in these villages.

Production area

Southeastern Transylvania

For links to the other product descriptions Preserves, Cheeses: Brinza de Burduf, Brînza de burduf transilvaneana; Transylvanian sheep Telemea, Telemea transilvaneana de oaie; Buffalo milk Cascaval, cascaval din lapte de bivol; Transylvanian whey cheese, Urda transilvaneana; and Cured Meats.