On Cheese Curd Snacks

When a Soviet snack is rebranded as health food

Any of you who have spent much time in Eastern Europe will undoubtedly have come across a curious snack in the dairy chiller cabinet. These little bars, smaller than a bank card, are sweetened cheese curds - sometimes with a filling - covered in a chocolate shell. In Estonia these are known as “kohuke” and “syrok” in Russia, and the flavours range from plain chocolate, to caramel, and even cloudberry. When I lived in Estonia I always threw a few into my shopping basket, and whenever I go back I usually get one at the R-Kiosk at Tallinn airport before getting a tram into town. They’re delicious tiny cheesecake bars and are available all over in the Baltic States (and I found some in a supermarket in Yerevan and also in Chisinau), but in the UK you’d mostly be lucky to find a few in the frozen section of an Eastern European shop, and the texture certainly suffers from a few months in the deep freeze.

These little bars were incredibly popular in the 20th century, especially in the USSR where chocolate was not always in abundant supply. With a kohuke people could grab a sweet snack that might not be available otherwise. Like many things in that era kohuke were the victim of supply shortages, but rumour has it that the first automated production line in Latvia was created to make these little treats.

These are, perhaps, a bit healthier than a regular chocolate bar, but they’re not a health food and still contain plenty of sugar and often palm oil as well. The coatings are not high quality, and the more unusual coatings flavoured with raspberry or condensed milk are more like a Caramac bar than a 70% single source dark chocolate.

In Estonia your choice of kohuke can be a subject of debate. The cheapest ones are from the Tere brand, usually costing about €0.35 and possessing a uniquely squeaky quality. My favourite ones are from Saremaa (and island off the west coast of Estonia) but if they’re not available I’ll take a Latvian Karums brand, even though I was admonished by the grandmother of an Estonian friend for buying a Latvian brand when perfectly good Estonian ones were available. At least that’s what I was told, my A2 level Estonian isn’t advanced enough to understand that, and Estonian is a notoriously difficult language to learn.

You’d be hard pressed to find a kohuke in Estonia for more than €0.60, and even with the rampant inflation that has hit Estonia in recent years kohuke seem to have remained fairly stable in price. They’re a staple in Estonian households, and indeed they’re a familiar pick me up all across parts of the world where the USSR once exerted its influence.

Photo by Elena Leya on Unsplash

This part of the world takes cottage cheese (more like cheese curds to Brits) seriously, and it’s used in delicious ways. In Ukraine pancakes known as “syrnyky” are made with it, and smothered in homemade berry jam. In Lithuania they make a cake called “varškės pyragas”, with the cheese adding a dense, and delicious, moisture. In the UK cottage cheese is often a sad affair, used to add low-calorie protein to a dish. Eastern European cottage cheese bears little resemblance to the sad curds floating in a watery whey that we eat, and if you get the chance do buy some tangy, Eastern European cottage cheese (or the really quite delicious Langley Farm variety too). It can be used to fill dumplings, and is truly a component of a meal, rather than a functional add-on.

With all that said, you’d think I’d be overjoyed to see kohuke on the shelves of UK supermarkets, and I am, I think it is a re-branded Saremaa bar, but it’s the way its marketed which, well, doesn’t irk me, but does intrigue me. I can see why the snacks are marketed the way they are, but I find it amusing that a quick and dirty Soviet snack is sold as a health food in the UK.

The UK (much like the USA) is certainly the place to flog ultra-processed crap as a health giving elixir. This is a country where you can spend £4 on a highly refined “cocoa energy ball” that is rammed full of sugar and will give you energy, but exactly the same sort of energy you’d get from a decidedly more delicious Mars Bar. Sugar is sugar, regardless if it comes from a cane, a beet, a coconut or a maple tree. Here you can sell a cheesecake bar, and pretend that it’s good for you. The Estonian Kohuke is marketed as a “Nordic Yoghurt Bar” under the “Yaar” brand, giving it an air of ruddy-cheeked wholesomeness.

If you look at where Yaar is sold, these are mostly higher end and more expensive shops. They’re part of the Meal Deal offers at both Sainsbury’s and The Co-op, and you can buy multipacks in the decidedly middle class Waitrose. They come in flavours such as cloudberry and strawberry, again adding to the illusion of health, which are both quite a long way from the caramel and biscuit flavours available in Estonia. Cloudberries are an unusual flavour for Brits, I was lucky enough to have some growing in the garden of my grandparents house in the far north of Scotland, where we would excitedly wait for them to turn vivid shades of orange and pink, then try and swipe them before the crows - who also had a taste for cloudberries - spotted them. For most in the UK cloudberries are too hard to find, or too expensive, and even in Estonia a small bag of berries will set you back a tidy sum. These posh kohuke also cost about £1.50, quite considerably more expensive than the cheap and easy snack of its homeland.

I am pleased that I can now get kohuke in the UK, and even at the shop at the end of my street. I do somewhat wish that we could just accept them for what they are, rather than trying to make them a falsely premium and healthy snack. If, on a depressing work day, you find yourself in the sandwich aisle of your local Sainsbury’s, however, do think about giving one of these strange little bars a go, and enjoy a tiny cheesecake to brighten your day.

As an aside I once made a cloudberry beer, I wrote the recipe then got the quote for cloudberry puree to be sent from Finland. I had to quickly adjust the recipe when I found out that cloudberry puree was €250 per kilo…