Chaco Dairy · Mennonite Farmhouse Cheese
Queso Paraguay (Queso Chaqueño)
Photo: Correadeb / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
The cheese is produced by Mennonite dairy cooperatives that settled the Chaco desert in the 1920s and 1930s, turning one of South America's harshest, driest regions into Paraguay's dairy heartland.
A soft, mild, slightly salty cow's milk cheese is pressed into blocks and sold fresh at Chaco cooperative stores and roadside stands. It's the cheese used to fill Paraguay's chipa and sopa paraguaya nationwide.
Why it's made this way: Boquerón department is home to the Mennonite colonies of Filadelfia and Loma Plata, whose dairy cooperatives built Paraguay's cheese industry from the Chaco outward.
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