Welcome to Faraway Cheeses! Whether you’re curled up in bed, glued to your desk at work, or trying to ignore a professor in class, you’re about to take a quick vacation. No need to pack your bags, but come prepared with a curious appetite: You’ll be learning about some unfamiliar, tongue-twisting curds.

I just got back from a semester abroad in Latin America, a region perhaps best known for cheeses such as Argentina’s provoleta and Mexico’s cotija. However, when I became frantic and began furiously searching supermarkets for the cheeses I so desperately craved, I found a plethora of dairy I would never have imagined.

This unexpected discovery is the basis of this blog series: under-represented cheeses in unexpected countries.

With every post, Faraway Cheeses will focus on a country—probably one of the last that would come to your mind if someone asked you to name a cheese-producing region—and will highlight a number of traditional cheeses from this area.

Expect history, culture, and probably at least a little bit of drooling. Forget France and Italy—We’re going to be talking about countries from El Salvador to the Philippines, and many unfamiliar wheels and wedges along the way.

Anne Jastrzebski

Anne is a former Editorial Web Intern at culture. A Pennsylvania native who loved farm animals way before she loved cheese, she can often be found peeking up from her International Relations textbook to scroll through pictures of goats.