Cheese

It’s hard to really know when started the existence of “el requesón de As Neves”.

There are some evidences of a pilgrimage to Compostela in the area, called “Camino de Raíña” and the oral tradition want that these pilgrims, coming in a famous place like “Pousadoiro”, at the limit of “San Xosé de Ribarteme and “Santa Eulalia de batalláns”, in the Franqueira road, were welcomed with “requeixo”. This product, native from the areas of the highland township, concretely from the cerdeira parish, the place of “Lentille” in “Santa Eulalia de Batalláns” and “Cernada” in “San Xosé de Ribarteme”, came pratically up to today with the same development process.

It got goat and cow’s raw milk in a pan next to a heat source, and when the milk is at a good temperature, it was sprinkled with rennet (shredded and dry’s stomach dairy goat), then they let it resting during 24 hours in a warm temperature.

When the milk was curd, it was introduced in a drain bag to remove the serum. Then the bag was emptied and the cheese kneaded to give it a more homogeneous texture and more creamy. That’s obtained was molded to elabore cheese of nearly 85g which looks to croquettes before being enveloped in cabbages leaves. Since, this presentation was made in linen, money-paper and now in alimentary film. In the antiquity, these cheeses were sold by decade and they were used to currency exchange against consumer goods like fish, coffee or sugar.

With the emergence of pharmaceutical products, the goat grated stomach was replaced by lactic ferments. In mentioned areas, in preceding paragraphs, there are always few houses where this product is elaborated for their own consumption with particular and specific characteristics according to the quality of pastures.

Honey

The area of “Condado Paradanta” and mainly the town called “As Neves” has always been a strong beekeeping tradition area thanks to her caracteristical flora.

There is a large variety of melliferous flora composed with eucalyptus, fruit trees, cabbages, chestnuts, bushes, ericaceaes, oak and meadow which guarantee a constant alimentation of the apiary from February to August.

Since forever, and until there is few years, apiares was composed by cork hives and covered by rye straw. This form of beekeeping is explicated by the fact that bees had populated the Galicia in first in the cork of hoods and the tradition want of the cork farming is very present in Condado Paradanta’s mountains.

It’s when began 80’s when mobile hives of “Langhstron” type appeared, that the beekeeping was revolutionized. However, this department suffers of a serious backhand at the end of this decade with the appearance of diseases like AFB and the “Varroa” which had destroyed almost the totality of apiaries. It’s at the half of 90’s that started a slow recovery of few apiaries and it's now that we start to see the first results of treatments against diseases and thanks to the knowledge of the apiaries management by few beekeepers. However this beekeeping is mainly a self-subsistence. But the big problem that beekeepers have is the lack of unification of criters and of chronology when they have to realize preventive treatments.