Roadside Stand · Braided String Cheese
Queso Palmito
Photo: Rodtico21 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
The cheese is stretched and braided by hand into long ropes, a technique that gives it a stringy texture you pull apart in strands rather than slice.
Fresh curd cheese is heated and stretched by hand into long, braided strands, then sold coiled into rounds. Roadside stands in Palmares, in Alajuela province, sell it fresh alongside passing highway traffic.
Why it's made this way: Palmito cheese takes its name directly from Palmares, the Alajuela-province town where the braiding technique originated and remains concentrated among a handful of producing families.
More from Costa Rica
Part of World of Street Food — 690 dishes from 118 countries.
Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below.
Photo credits.