Grunost is a type of cheese that is sweet and often typical of Norways’ cheese culture. It is incidentally not a cheese at all since it is made from the process of making cheese that leaves whey as a by product. This whey is boiled with milk or cream to make a brown caramelized cheese. What is unusual about Grunost is that it is caramelized from lactose present in the whey, so it may be consumed by the lactose intolerant. There is a lot of tradition associated with grunost since it was derived from a left over part of cheese making and thus illustrating how the earlier generations utilized every available nutrition source. The Grunost tradition continues since even the slicing of this cheese is done with a specialized instrument called ostehovel.
In 2013, Grunost made news when a truck carrying a many kilos of the cheese caught fire in a tunnel and it took days to put out the flames that closed the roadways. So, this cheese is rich AND tasty.
