This paper explores how shepherds in the Polish Carpathians negotiated the challenges of producing pastoral cheese for a newly liberalized market in the decade following the end of socialism. In the 1990s and early 2000s, mountain communities experienced a rapid growth in tourism and rising popularity of local cheeses, including the traditional smoked sheep’s cheese oscypek. This led to a revaluation of local and heritage foods, and the entry of new – commercial and artisanal – actors into the local market. At the same time, regulations were introduced which banned the production of unpasteurized cheeses, effectively criminalizing traditional production practices. Makovicky shows how shepherds changed their economic and cultural practices in response to the contradictory demands of this market, both adapting to and defying the logics of post-socialist economic and rural policy.
