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The tiny country of Switzerland has a cheesemaking tradition that stretches back many centuries. The bountiful and verdant mountain pastureland, as well as the high quality of the milk makes for truly great cheeses. Throughout the country, in small village dairies, cheesemakers continue the age-old artisan methods that are virtually unchanged except for the more modern tools, equipment, and modes of transportation. Several of the nation's cheeses — such as Gruyère, Emmental, and Appenzeller, to name but a few — would appear on anyone's short list of the world's greatest and oldest examples of the cheesemakers' art.

The oldest one of them all is what is called Swiss Mountain Cheese, also known as Sbrinz (the name comes from an old spelling of the Swiss market town of Brienz in the Bernese Oberland).

Most cheese sources say that it was likely the cheese Pliny the Elder was referring to when he wrote of caseus helveticus, or "Swiss cheese," in the first century AD. In any case, the cheese has been around for at least that long and has always been highly regarded by cheese aficionados throughout Europe and especially in Italy since it is closely related in style, texture, and flavor to their beloved grana-type cheeses. Some upstarts even suggest it may be the ancestral inspiration for Parmigiano-Reggiano, the greatest grana cheese of all. In any case, the Romans would have surely known of it, and a steady trade with Italy has gone on since its inception. Swiss Mountain Cheese is a cooked, pressed cheese that is aged for up to two years or longer until it possesses a hard, granular texture with a deep golden color and a rich, nutty taste redolent of butterscotch. It is still made from unpasteurized, part-skim cow's milk in central Switzerland in and around the cantons of Lucerne, Unterwalden, Schwyz, and Zug.

Although it is lovely to eat out of hand, its true calling is as a grating cheese. It melts beautifully and adds a robust flavor to any hot dish, such as pasta, soups, or casseroles, and also salads. Sometimes, it is shaved into long curly slivers, or rebibes, and served on its own as an appetizer. In this fashion, it is often called Hobelkäse, stemming from the word hobel, meaning a carpenter's plane. Sbrinz, like most hard cheeses, is also said to be very easy to digest, or for those who are lactose intolerant, and has often been called for as a medicament. Swiss Mountain Cheese pairs well with a wide variety of wine and beer, depending on the dish it is incorporated into. Although not talked about as much as the other great Swiss cheeses, this is a magnificent cheese, well worthy of the praise heaped upon it for centuries.