Extremaduran “tortas”: the heart beneath the rind

Abstract

This book is not about bread – or, in a way, it is. It is about bread and about other products that shape the stories of cheese. They pair with cheese, they flavour cheese or they are accompanied by cheese. Rye bread is one of the secrets behind the production of Roquefort cheese. It is in this bread that the Penicillium Roqueforti mold grows, giving the cheese its unique colour and flavour. Rye bread transforms the cheese into Roquefort. Cheeses are dynamic by nature, through their making process and the people who make them possible. Cheeses reflect the landscapes they come from – from alpine pastures to coastal caves, from desert caravans to urban cellars. Cheeses are nomadic travelers. They cross borders. They connect generations. Each cheese carries within it a dialogue: between farmers and land, makers and tradition, eaters and culture. As a source of change, cheeses also bring people together. Cheeses invite conversation, encourage curiosity and challenge our senses. As this book aims to, cheeses become a shared language through personal narratives. Each cheese story is a reminder that identity is not static. It adapts, learns and reinvents itself with every encounter, with every cheese and, even, with the same cheese but in a different moment or from a different perspective. Cheese is a powerful agent of intercultural dialogue. This book, Cheese Experiences Across Cultures, features 120 contributions from 127 experts with diverse academic and professional backgrounds in tourism. Each contribution includes two facing pages, with an image on the left-hand page and a text on the right, to tell cheese experiences from different cultural and territorial contexts. These experiences are based on cheese as a product, spaces of production, landscapes, places of consumption, markets, and other forms of experiences which happen in diverse places. As readers, you will travel through home kitchens, mountains or prisons, and you will engage in discussions about climate change, ethics or migration. With contributors from 45 countries in North America, South America, Europe, Central Asia, East Asia, Middle East, Africa and Oceania, the book aims to offer a global and plural perspective on cheese, not only as a food product but as a key element in shaping the cultural identity of different individuals and societies, and the relationship between culture, nature and tourism through gastronomy. Cheese Experiences Across Cultures provides a perspective on cheese as an element that highlights territorial resources (both physical and human environments) and contributes to cultural exchange. This ethnographic and experiential perspective offers a broader understanding of how cheese acts as a vehicle for the exchange of knowledge, facilitating learning and interconnection between people and societies. The book also co-creates awareness of the role of cheese in the sustainable development of primary sector activities and their relationship with tourism, as well as the value of cultural and natural heritages and local traditions. We invite you to enjoy this collective project Cheese Experiences Across Cultures, a free, open-access digital book promoted by the Social Council of the University of Girona on the occasion of Catalonia’s designation as the World Region of Gastronomy 2025​