Aurel Cotinghi clutching a two-kilo roll of
Brinza cheese wrapped in pine bark.
Photograph: Kalle Kaub. There is no mistaking the produce on offer at the mountain hut manned by
Transylvanian shepherd Aurel Cotinghi.
The tang of cheese pierces the clear alpine air and overwhelms considerable olfactory competition from a baying pack of shaggy guard dogs and about 250 grubby sheep, whose milk Cotinghi and his family - and hundreds of other shepherds dotted around the pastures of Romania - turn into a variety of traditional dairy products.
In the back of his gently listing hut, countless kilos of cheese sit wrapped in huge bales like loft insulation, while smaller portions come packed in portable tubes of fragrant pine bark.
The shepherds live on this stuff - milk, butter, salty, crumbly brinza cheese and a soft, rich feta-like variety called telemea - and sell what they don't eat in nearby markets.
The Romanian staple is mamaliga - a polenta that may be a legacy of Roman occupation, like the nation's Latinate language - and it goes superbly well with a slab of melting brinza and a thick dollop of smintana, the local version of a sour cream found across eastern Europe and the Balkans.
The best Romanian dishes are essentially peasant food, with nothing left to waste: drob de miel is a traditional Easter meatloaf made from lamb's heart, lungs, tongue and livers, and a ubiquitous starter is ciorba de burta, a garlicky and deliciously sour tripe soup.
In the cool forests around Cotinghi's pastures, people collect wild mushrooms and baskets of berries, and the fruit of one plant or tree is often put to numerous uses, as when elderflowers are soaked to make a refreshing drink called socata, and elderberries are made into a dark, rich jam.
The mountain meadows of Transylvania also supply its kitchens with a host of wildflowers that locals use to make herbal teas and traditional remedies, and each village (or even family) seems to cherish its own expert in the making of tuica, a plum brandy that makes regular mealtime appearances and is usually prepared in early winter once the autumn wine-making is done.
Romania's territory was divided for centuries between the Austrian Habsburgs and the Ottomans, and in its food you can taste that fact that, here, eastern Europe blends with the Balkans.
A typical meal may begin with a soup called bors that shares its name with a Ukrainian speciality, followed by stuffed vine or cabbage leaves called sarmale that resemble both Greek dolmades and Russian golubtsy; you could also enjoy a helping of plump, grilled sausages called mititei that aren't a million miles from Serb cevapcici, and finish with a kind of Turkish Delight called rahat or a sponge cake whose name also betrays its Ottoman origins: pandispan.
Or you could just keep it simple and choose mamaliga cu brinza si smintana - polenta with salty cheese and sour cream - and delight in Romania's premier comfort food, the nation's meal of choice from the chic brasseries of Bucharest to the shepherd huts of Transylvania.
