Quark (cheese)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Quark (or qvark) is a type of fresh cheese of Central European origin. Dictionaries usually translate it as curd cheese. It is white and unaged, similar to cream cheese, pot cheese, or ricotta. It is made by letting lactic acid bacteria (sometimes also rennet) ferment milk, with the resulting curd. Some or most of the whey is removed to standardise the quark to the desired thickness. Traditionally, this is done by hanging the cheese in loosely woven cotton gauze called cheesecloth and letting the whey drip off, which gives quark its distinctive shape of a wedge with rounded edges. In industrial production, however, cheese is separated from whey in a centrifuge and later formed into blocks.
In the United States and Canada, quark is sometimes sold in plastic tubs with most or all of the whey. This type of quark has the texture of sour cream and is often sold flavored with herbs, spices, or fruit.
Quark consists of 60% to 80% water. Dry mass ranges from 10% to 40% fat; most of the rest is protein, 80% of which is casein, calcium, and phosphate.
The name comes from the German Quark, which in turn is derived from the Slavic tvarog, (Polish twaróg, Russian tvorog, and Czech and Slovak tvaroh, which means "curd"). In Austria and Bavaria the name Topfen ("pot cheese") is used instead of Quark, while in Estonian, it is known as kohupiim ("foamy milk"). The cheese is also known simply as "white cheese" (Polish: ser biały, Lithuanian: Baltas sūris, Southern Germany: Weißkäse or weißer Käs) as opposed to any rennet-set "yellow cheese."
The Polish and Lithuanian variety contains less whey and is therefore drier and more solid than varieties common in other countries. It is often used as an ingredient for sandwiches, salads, and cheesecakes.
In German, Quark and Topfen may be used figuratively to mean "nonsense." This usage is believed to be an inspiration for the sentence Three quarks for Muster Mark in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake [citation needed], which itself inspired the name of quarks, elementary particles of which most of the material world is built.
