Jben
Morocco's fresh white cheese of cow or goat milk, mild and tangy, sold wrapped in palm leaves in the north.
Also: جبن, jben beldi, lben jben
Jben is the Moroccan Arabic word for cheese, and in practice means a fresh, white, unripened cheese made at home and in small dairies. Raw cow or goat milk is left to sour or is set with rennet, sometimes with plant coagulants, and the curd is drained in cloth or small baskets. It is moist, mildly sour and lightly salted, rather like a soft feta. In the Rif mountains around Chefchaouen, goat-milk jben is sold in markets wrapped in dwarf palm leaves. It is eaten at breakfast with bread, olive oil and honey, added to salads, and folded into msemen. The everyday Arabic word elsewhere is jibneh or gibna.