According to Milbenkäse ("mite cheese"), the German specialty is made by flavoring balls of quark with caraway and salt, drying them, and leaving them "in a wooden box containing rye flour and cheese mites for about three months." "
An enzyme in the digestive juices excreted by the mites causes the cheese to ripen." The rind turns yellow after a month and reddish brown after three. "Mites clinging to the cheese rind are consumed along with the cheese."
The rye flour has a purpose: "the flour is added because the mites would otherwise simply eat the whole cheese instead of just nibbling away at the crust." The recipe, which "dates back to the Middle Ages," was nearly lost by 1970, when only the elderly Liesbeth Brauer still knew it. A local science teacher, Helmut Pöschel, learned the method and revived it, and Würchwitz — the only village that still makes Milbenkäse — later erected a Cheese Mite Memorial.
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