Norwegians Love Sweet & Creamy Brunost, But is it Technically Cheese?

Norway, a country whose most iconic cultural export is painter Edvard Munch’s depiction of the agony of human existence, would like to offer a more upbeat alternative. This January, when Mona Juhl, the Norwegian Ambassador to the United Nations, began her term as president of the UN Security Council, she presented each council member with a welcome gift of brunost, a treasured native foodstuff, literally translated as brown cheese (Hardcore Munch fans might call it Scream cheese).

"File:Brunost - Brown cheese.jpg" by color line is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Brunost is blocky, beige, sweet and savory. In Norway, it’s a popular ice cream flavor. In South Korea—where sweet and salty combinations are common—it’s caught on as a trendy pizza topping. First made on a small Norwegian farmstead in 1863, and then brought to Oslo where it was exposed to a much larger market, brunost boomed in popularity, becoming one of Norway’s staple foods within decades. It’s such a culinary icon that Solbråsetra, the farm where brunost was first made has been preserved as a national historic site.

What is Brunost?

As befits any item brought to the table of the UN Security Council, brunost is a bit controversial. According to the U.S. FDA, Norway’s brown cheese is technically not cheese at all. Its main ingredient is the whey left behind after curds have been removed in the cheesemaking process.

The remnant whey is combined with milk, cream or a combination of the two, then boiled until most of the water evaporates and the sugars caramelize to a golden color. The resulting semi-soft mass, sold in rectangular portions, has a uniform sheen with no distinction between rind and paste.

“What do you mean it’s not cheese?!” exclaimed lifelong brunost afficionado Brady Simpson upon learning the truth about his favorite breakfast treat. A Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Simpson first fell for the stuff as a 7-year-old boy hanging on the apron strings of his Norwegian nanny. “She served it on crepes and I was instantly in love with it. I’ve never stopped eating it since,” says Simpson. “Today I put it on egg sandwiches pretty much every weekend.” The creator of Peanut, an online tool that provides international travelers with covid entry requirements and quarantine details, Simpson has used his own travels as an opportunity to try a variety of artisanal brunosts in Scandinavia and even had a Norwegian colleague ship him a ten pound block of his favorite, from the Norwegian fjord town of Flam. “I’ve never heard of anyone refer to it as anything other than cheese,” he said, acknowledging that this new information only makes brunost more intriguing. “It’s always been a great conversation starter when we have friends over for brunch.”

Brunost: Love it or Leave it

Part of what makes those conversations interesting, he explained, is that with its unfamiliar look, taste and texture, brunost can be polarizing. “Everyone I’ve had try it has a different reaction, said Simpson. “My wife won’t eat it at all.  But I’m someone who does seek out different and unusual foods. I love durian, for instance.” While not nearly as intense as that much debated South Asian fruit, brunost has a flavor that likewise eludes easy description; its variable sweet, sour and salty notes are dependent on individual makers’ particular ratios of cream to milk and of cow’s milk to goat’s milk. Ski Queen, the only brand of brunost imported to the U.S. from Norway, comes in a Classic blended milk version which tastes vaguely like a hybrid of Kraft® caramel and a mild muenster and the saltier, funkier Ski Queen Goat.          

How to Enjoy Brunost

Brunost is traditionally enjoyed in small servings: Paper-thin leaves are shaved from the block with a wire slicer or cheese plane and placed on toast or crispbreads. Brunost shavings are also commonly set to melt atop fried eggs and fresh waffles. In Norway, travelers will rarely find a hotel breakfast without brown cheese on hand.

If sliced thickly, the texture of fresh-from-the-fridge brunost can be somewhat offputting, with an oddly synthetic mouthfeel that evokes children’s polymer modeling clay. But larger quantities work well incorporated in baked goods such as apple pie and muffins, and in savory stroganoffs and casseroles.

One of the most appealing applications for brunost is in a fondue; melted and mixed with cinnamon, sugar, cream and cognac it makes an offbeat but delicious dip for strawberries and bananas, perhaps accompanied by cubed poundcake or gingerbread.

Brunost in the US

While many Norwegians enjoy brown cheese on a daily basis and in myriad preparations, brunost remains largely under the radar in the U.S. Even though Whole Foods has recently begun to stock Ski Queen nationally, says Valerie Liu, a spokesperson for Tine, Ski Queen’s Norwegian parent company brunost is still primarily purchased in cities with Norwegian-American clientele. “Minneapolis is a strong market for us,” she says.

Currently, only about $200,000 of Ski Queen is sold in the U.S. annually says Liu, a mere nibble of the market share held by Tine’s flagship American import, Jarlsberg. “We haven’t really taken the brand to the next level yet. We’re looking to do a lot of sampling after the pandemic so more people can get a first taste.”