Kpalion, 2005, Wikimedia Commons

Bryndza is a sheep milk cheese made in Central and Eastern Europe. Recipes differ slightly across the countries.

Brânză or brînză is the generic word for “cheese” in Romanian, there is no special type of cheese associated with it. It is a word presumably inherited by the Romanian language from Dacian, the language of the pre-Roman population in the actual Romania. The word was first recorded as brençe in the Croatian port of Dubrovnik in 1370. Today, “bryndza”, a word descended from the Romanian root, is used in various countries throughout the CEE region such as Slovakia or Poland, due to its introduction by migrating Vlachs (please, see section Slovakia). In contrast to the original Romanian word, it is exclusively used for the one type of soft crumbly cheese described above.