Brunost is a traditional, Norwegian, creamed whey product made from a mix of cow's and goat's milk. It is made by adding cream to whey and boiling it down until it has become a thick and firm.
It was created in the 1863 by Anne Hov who lived in Gudbrandsdalen, a rural valley in Norway. Anne was the daughter of farmer parents and from a very young age helped look after cows on the mountains. On her 16th birthday, when she was confirmed, she was made responsible for running the farm, which sat among a cluster of other mountain dairy farms in the valleys. She treated the milk, churned butter, made cheese and boiled whey. During a visit to a neighbouring farm one summer, she tasted a brown cheese which had been made from the whey of cow’s milk and decided she wanted to try to create something similar. She poured cream into the whey that she was boiling and cooked it for several hours. Once it was cool, she kneaded it with her hands and placed it in cheese moulds.
Her new creation was extremely well received so she started making it at home using both cream and goat’s milk. She had a 70 litre kettle in which she boiled the whey over fire and every batch was entirely handmade. She sold it to a local shopkeeper who first sold it to just the locals but eventually across the whole country. It became so popular in the 1880’s that it helped significantly in bringing the region of out recession and saved the area from financial ruin. Anne was awarded the King’s Medal of Merit by the Norwegian government as a thank you and the recipe has since become Norway’s national ‘cheese’.