Roadside Stand · Braided String Cheese
Queso Palmito
Photo: Rodtico21 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
The cheese is stretched and wound by hand into layers, so it pulls apart in stringy ribbons rather than being sliced.
Fresh curd cheese is heated, stretched by hand into long ribbons, and wound into a layered ball. Roadside stands and dairies in the northern Alajuela highlands, around Zarcero and San Carlos, sell it fresh to passing traffic.
Why it's made this way: Palmito cheese takes its name from palmito, heart of palm, because its tightly wound layers peel apart like the rings of a palm heart; it is a specialty of Alajuela's dairy country.
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