Posts from — July 2008

The above quote, by Victorian economist and journalist Walter Bagehot, perhaps surmises the mentality of the British that led them to create Cheddar. Good things don’t come easy and that includes Cheddar. I only can imagine that the methods to make Cheddar were the ego-driven work of a nasty bet between a Frenchman and a Brit. Maybe the Frenchman taunted the Brit that he could not make a cheese to rival those of the Franks. Whatever the circumstances, the British rose to the challenge and created a cheese that is both ubiquitous and foreign to us Americans. Cheddar is certainly the most familiar of cheeses for Americans, but those orange shrink-wrapped blocks are so far removed from what the British call Cheddar. The real thing more closely resembles Parmigiano-Reggiano and in guidelines set forth by Neal’s Yard Dairy in England, there are requirements to what can be called “Cheddar.” Those requirements are that raw milk be used, traditional (veal) rennet is used to set the milk, the curd is hand-milled, and the cheeses are cloth-wrapped or “bandaged.” It also requires that Cheddar be made in Somerset County, but we’ll skip that one.
I had my first opportunity to make Cheddar last week when we realized we needed a batch of Clayburne (our Cheddar) for our Christmas boxes (when things need to age for several months, it’s hard not to think of the holidays months in advance). I had been threatened with this prospect since I began my apprenticeship a year ago. “Oh just wait until we make Clayburne…” Jeremy would say. Feliciano would shudder at it’s mention. Could it be that bad? Yes and no. Having made it now, I can see why we only make this once a year. In order for us to make Clayburne, we go through all the normal processes- culturing, renneting, cutting, stirring and where we would normally begin molding- we decided to extend the cheesemaking process for about two hours. First difference was that we drained all the whey out of the vat and pushed the curd up to the sides of the vat. After the acidity reached a certain point, we divided the curd into even slabs and began the cheddaring process. Cheddaring is the act of stacking the curd slabs onto each other so they continue to press whey out of the curd. Again we waited for the acidity to drop and once it hit its mark, we began to mill the curd. This is the crazy part and what distinguishes the good from the bad. There are machines that mill and make life easier, but they also make tasteless cheese. We choose to hand-mill, possibly because we don’t possess the milling machine, but more likely because we have some reverence for the way they did it in the olde days. Milling is basically taking the huge cheddared slabs and cutting them up into 3/4 inch cubes. After the curd is milled, it is salted and we get a delicious little snack of fresh cheese curds before we shovel the curd into bandaged molds. The bandages are there to keep the mold off the cheese. The process is finally wrapped up when we toss the finished molds onto the press for 72 hours! This is significant- most of our cheeses hang out on the press for a few hours max.

Speaking of wrapping things up. Tomorrow is my last day at the dairy. I’m moving to New York City to get a taste for the flip-side of the business, working for Saxelby Cheesemongers. Before I do that though, I’m headed off to the 25th American Cheese Society Conference where hopefully Sweet Grass will sweep up the competition. We have entered a bounty of cheeses to be judged and I’m confident we have some winners, for which I’ve played a part. Regardless of the outcome, I’ve taken great pleasure at the opportunity to have had this apprenticeship. Many people thought I was crazy to leave Chicago for Southern Georgia to make cheese and a great many more thought I wouldn’t be able to hack it. More than all the things I’ve learned about cheese and farming, the most important thing I’m taking away from this experience is that you can do anything if you want it badly enough. To quote another Brit, Winston Churchill once said “a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Sweet Grass is a testament to this philosophy. We’ve had our share of our difficulties this year- here’s to hoping for a sweet finish in Chicago!