Montenegrin cheese, kajmak and skorup

Dairy is the most recognisable part of the Montenegrin table and the category where the gap between farmhouse and factory is most obvious. Pljevlja cheese — a white cheese matured in brine in wooden barrels, ranked among the hundred best cheeses in the world — comes from the northern pastures. Njeguši cheese and skorup, made on the karst above the Bay of Kotor, are an entirely different animal.

You will find cow, sheep and mixed-milk cheeses here, along with skorup, kajmak, clarified butter and farmhouse yoghurt. Ask which milk was used, how long it matured and how it should be kept: real skorup is skimmed by hand and stored in a skin or barrel, and raw-milk cheese should come with a shelf life the producer states plainly.