Nathalie Bouffe

Meeting Heroes: Madness and Cheese

Irish cheesemakers are a funny, gnarled breed of fighters.  Those who’ve made West Cork their home have chosen an area of undeniable beauty; rolling green hills that tumble into a lapping, tender sea.  The rough-cut landscape of westernmost West Cork carves peninsulas that stretch out of Ireland like fingers, and these cheesemakers live on the green and rocky tassels of what is already the fringe, making cheeses that taste incontestably of the sea.  They have banded together to fight any adversity that dares head their way: funky bacteria, unreasonable laws, ignorant auditors.  Over the thirty years of their struggle, they have become some of the most well-informed, highly organized, voluble, eloquent and compelling of the cheesemakers in the British Isles. 

Because West Cork is wet, most of them make washed-rind cheeses.  Washed-rinds are generally recognizable as pinky-brown, sticky, squidgy, stinky wheels covered more in moist bacteria than dry, powdery mold (like a Camembert or Brie might), although if it’s been a while since its last washing, the cheese might feel dry to the touch and look brown, like an Appenzeller or Comte (both of which are technically washed-rind cheeses that just don’t get washed very often—towards the end of their maturation they are dry-salted instead, so the outside gets crusty and hard).  The bacteria known as B. linens (the name we’ve given to the sticky pink stuff) thrives in humid environments and by the sea, which explains the prevalence—and excellence—of the many West Cork washed-rinds.  Indeed, Veronica Steele of Milleens, one of the first cheesemakers in this area of then-undiscovered terroir, tried at first to make a hard, cheddar-style cheese, but as it kept being colonized by B. linens, she eventually gave in to the stuff and ever since has been proud to make some of the loveliest, pinkest, stinkiest literalizations of West Cork’s terrain and sea air. 

Berkswell Near and Far

On my way to visit Linda Dutch at Berkswell I met two old gentlemen in the farm lane.  They tottered on canes, both, they wore button-down navy cardigans over striped polos over what, even as an American, I'd call trousers.  Pleated.  One was ghostly white and flat-haired; the other, bristly and brown. 

The first asked haltingly if I knew what the sheep in the fields were used for.  "Cheese," I said.  "Berkswell cheese."  They'd never heard of it.  "Taste a piece," I offered.  I'd brought some up from London to have Linda try; it's always nice for cheesemakers to taste the finished product, as few ever do once it leaves the farm. 

The piece was sweaty and had soaked the grease-proof paper but they both closed their eyes to enjoy it, as if revisiting a buried memory.  "Can I get this in the village?" one of the gentlemen asked.  I supposed so, but I wasn't sure.  "You're American, aren't you?" the other one wondered.  "I'm going to visit my son in Philadelphia next week."

Well, I never.  Now at least he knows where to find Berkswell in Philadelphia...

(not philadelphia)

Short Stories about British Cheese

Funny thing, fame.  Hard to know when or where it’ll hit, what haphazard celestial logic plucks the chosen ones from the chaff.  Some people seek it out, bartering sex, principles or money for column inches…and then there are those whose notoriety suddenly materializes, fashions itself without their permission: lightning strikes them twice, or doctors remove a tumor the size of a microwave from their backside, or they unexpectedly birth octuplets.  Or they make a famous cheese.

Charles Martell, I think we’d agree, is rather unlikely a choice for infamy.  A zoologist turned cattle truck driver turned farmer, he became passionate about a local, ancient breed of cow known as the Old Gloucester, brownish-black, white-striped animals suited beautifully to both milk and meat, but especially cheesemaking (high casein content, small fat globules).  Only 68 were left by 1973, when Martell revived the Gloucester Cattle Society, defunct for over fifty years.  Today, thanks to the good work of Martell and fellow enthusiasts (and boy are cattle people enthusiasts), 719 Old Gloucester cows graze contentedly in pastures from East Anglia to Cornwall.

ENTERING KIRKHAMSHIRE

I realized with a gulp as I checked my bank balance at Euston station after paying for my ticket to Lancaster that I had 40 pence to my name, meant to last me til Friday (mongers, I'd be willing to wager, are far more likely to know the start date of the next pay period than that of their own menstrual period).  Graham had mentioned a cheap B&B, and I was intending to pay for drinks and dinner.  A significant problem, we'll agree, was at hand. 

(Ironically, the nearest person to me at the time was none other than Richard Goddamn Branson, who was posing for a photo op near the ticket office.  I tried to avoid drowning both of us in the flood of rejection slips that spouted from the cash machine). 

Wisdom holds that the farther up England you go, the nicer people become.  Well, Martin Tkalez hails from Morden, but other than that, the theory seems to stick.  When I got to Preston, Graham told me sheepishly that the cheap B&B was full, so he'd made a reservation at a slightly posher one, down the road.  And paid for it.

Well, slap me on the bottom and call me Betsy, I do know how to wield a credit card properly and told him so in no uncertain terms, but he'd have none of it, bless.

I was on my way up north to see Martin Gott's new lambs, new cheese room and new baby, and to go shooting with Graham Kirkham, a man who, when I first met him, must have spoke for forty minutes before I understood a single word he said.  To get a feel for the Lancashire accent, imagine the offspring a Canadian park ranger, Dallas cheerleader, and Glasgow cabbie would produce after nine months spent stuck in an elevator.  Add the laugh of a rhino and the heart of an angel and you've pretty much got Graham Kirkham, sine qua non.  I called him from the train station.  "Where are you?" I said.  "I'll come and get you," he answered.  "Oh shit, wait, I've still got my smelly wellies on.  Forget it.  You come here, it's too embahrahssing!"  When I climbed into the refrigerated van, I was too excited to speak properly.  "What are we going to shoot?" I asked him.  "GIRLIE, WE'RE GOING TO SHOOT THE SHIT OUT OF EVERYTHING!" roared Kirkham.  He's way louder in person than over the phone.

Making Mont d'Or

Every affineur and cheesemaker in France, it seemed, was in Paris on Monday for the Salon d’Agriculture. All except Monsieur Rousselet, president of the Longueville-Mont d’Or cheese cooperative. His wife was cadgy about why, and wheedled about before giving us an appointment in the afternoon. “It all depends how he’s feeling,” she said finally. “You see, he’s just had another round of chemo.”

We pulled up to the cooperative, blaring the Dead, stretched our legs and breathed in the sunshine glinting off the vast expanse of snow. Tiny skiers in one-piece quilted suits lobbed across the Mont d’Or like bright, slow-motion ping-pong balls on a massive white table.  It was a few minutes before M. Rousselet hobbled briskly up to us, a daft giant of a man with a fat, smooth head under a porkpie hat. He accepted Mateo’s cheese with amiable surprise—“Américain? Vraiment?”—and invited us in.

Mont d’Or production is exclusively cooperative-based; farmhouse production no longer exists and is in fact forbidden. “Except one renegade,” winked M. Rousselet. “My brother-in-law. Morbier man by trade. Makes Mont d’Or sometimes too. Sells it all on markets. How long are you staying? Hm, too bad…”  

What followed was the cleverest, most technically apt display of resourcefulness we’d witness all trip. The man and his brain trust had rigged up four tipping vats that spilled curd onto a table packed tight with forms. Men holding spade-like tools raked the curd over until the surface became level, which meant the forms were all equally full. Grouped in packs of sixteen so they could all be picked up at once, the forms were then racked and left to drain. Made-to-order trolleys and dollies askew littered the vast, deserted tile like android soldiers waiting idly for battle.

Let Loose in Paris

Trade shows, man. Whack. My first was the SIAL in Paris in October 2004, one of the world’s biggest annual agro-industrial conferences. Everyone who’s anyone in Big Food is there, wheeling and dealing, drinking espressos and madeira, signing contracts over sake and scotch.  Monsanto reps, Cargill people, Unilever cronies, Kraft works. There are merchants of Cretan olive oil cookies, floppy milk chocolate ‘slices’ to slip between slabs of bread, drinkable ice cream, look-alike bacon made of New Zealand chicken, Norwegian ‘penis pizza,’ zero-trans-fat Canadian cookies, pancake batter in a shake-and-squeeze bottle—which, you should know, sold 4.6 million units in nine months and was the number-one-selling food product in Austria for six weeks—Saudi Arabian candies, Hungarian fruit liquor known as ‘Zwack,’ a product labeled “Nature…in a can!,” and Dutch cholesterol-lowering yogurt made with something called ‘vegetable stanioles’: one of the top fifteen products launched in 2003.

There’s a water tasting bar and TV-dinner vending machines on offer and grenadine-menthol chewable frogs. A product that combines fruit juice from concentrate, ‘distilled aromas’ and pasteurized milk, which Danone has the rights to bottle, call ‘all-natural,’ and aim at children. Dance music, techno, salsa, pop.

Twelve men, smoking, in suits, seriously discuss frozen ground beef; they are, apparently, dealers in offal. Eastern Europeans, Spaniards, Muslims mill about. Miss Chiquita Banana 2005 twirls brightly, posing for pictures with Asian businessmen, flirtatious and wholesome, exotic and sweet. Massive, brightly-lit glass fridges hang with cold cow carcasses and floral arrangements. Walking through an exposition titled ‘The future of food’ reveals a vacuum-pack salad that releases, when opened for use, gelled vinaigrette pearls. There are potato chips shaped like thimbles to stick on one’s finger and dip in sauce, and a credit-card-sized cookie to keep in one’s wallet for emergencies. There’s grated ketchup called Ketcho-Rap.  Classical music booms out of great vibrating speakers, signs revolve and twinkle and flash.  

Moseying over to the US stand reveals gets me samples of beef jerky, soy products, fake champagne, and microwaveable popcorn. Awesome, guys. But it’s when I get to the magazine section that I really start enjoying myself.

Eating, Drinking, Smoking, Snoring, Singing

It’s a revolving door of opportunities, that Neal’s Yard Dairy.  So said Mateo Kehler to me in Chicago what seems a very long time ago.  Quite apropos, then, that the best break to come round in ages arrived straight from the horse’s mouth: an all-expenses offer to accompany him through France for a week visiting affineurs and cheesemakers, my only contribution being logistics, translation and company.  For the record, anyone interested in the same services is quite welcome to email me, immediately.

So we went, and now we’re back, ten pounds fatter with cheese and wine and pig parts and ten pounds lighter in cares and city-weight and time spent in snow and golden sun.

So, Internet, what did we eat?  Well, we met Valérie at the Halles in Lyon to savor pig face salad, pig’s ear, blood sausage, andouillette (intestines), and batter-fried tripe—this, our equivalent of breakfast after a six a.m. flight.  We met Hervé at the Troisgros brothers’ bistro in Roanne for Charollais beef so pillowy we could have cut it with spoons and one of the best wines I’ve ever tasted, a chocolatey 2004 Chateauneuf-du-Pape.  The next day, at his caves in Roanne, Hervé offered us his opinion of what was ‘good at the moment,’ a cheese board that tragically spoilt us for the rest of the trip: highlights included St.-Marcellin, Bleu d’Auvergne, Picodon Fermier, Tommette des Alpes, and Fromage du Maquis, which we washed down with Eric Bordelet’s Normandy Sydre.  Then we nibbled Pralus mini-chocolates in the car down the A43.

Gilt Ain't Gold

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Deep in the gorgeous heart of Gloucestershire sprawls a massive country estate that spends its decades slowly trickling through the various grubby hands of earls and archdukes, bankers and industrialists. At the moment, it’s held by a manufacturing heir and his wife, to whom society pages enjoy referring snarkily as “a former air hostess."  In the last few years they have transformed the old farming buildings—barn, pigsty, hayloft—into a muted fawn-and-cream paean to genteel country life.

My friend Jack makes cheddar there under conditions that would make most cheesemakers swoon until they fairly swam in their own drool. Milk from organically-pampered cows gets pumped the few dozen meters from the milking parlor to the cheese room. Jack, given carte blanche to design the cheese room, ordered wooden Dutch cheese presses that work on a pulley system and beautiful barrel-vaulted vats in which the water meant to heat the milk swishes around a thin exterior jacket made of fitted slats of wood held together by the water pressure.

Jack’s colleagues occupy similarly privileged positions. When we wake at 5:30 in fog so thick and cold so blistering that walking feels like maneuvering blindly through a frozen cloud, the bread bakers are already peering anxiously into their glowing ovens, spritzing moisture at the crusts of lovely rye bloomers and rising ciabattas (gluten-free). As our milk trickles into the vats, the arriving pâtissiers throw jagged chunks of bittersweet organic chocolate and bricks of farm butter into gigantic bain-maries, then make themselves Monmouth lattes. Jack’s helpers Pauline and Rose show up, shaking frost off, as does Pierre, the estate’s French yogurt-maker.  

One of the cows on the estate was recently pegged as a TB reactor, so Jack has no choice but to pasteurize until further notice. A TB reactor does not necessarily signify TB in the herd—in fact no lesions were found on the slaughtered beast—but it raises hell with the EHO, and has virtually paralyzed Jack’s cheesemaking. His pasteurizer, unused for years, processes milk so slowly that Jack’s only filling half a vat despite prolonging his already-lengthy day by two hours. 

Sure, no one wants foot-and-mouth. But it’s funny how frightened people are of unpasteurised cheese, which is a.) not less safe than pasteurized cheese and b.) safe, goddamn it already. More people die from eating badly-washed salad and drinking funky water than from eating cheese—I’ve hard, in fact, that it’s the safest food after honey.

Yes, pasteurisation kills pathogenic bacteria that may be present in unclean milk. But it also kills the inoculating, flavor-producing bacteria, effectively offering a clean slate for pathogens that happen to sneak in post-pasteurisation—that the ‘good’ bacteria would probably eliminate were it still around.

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It’s a crazy place, this estate. The shop sells everything from gluten-free highland muesli and organic homeopathic moon drops to scythes emblazoned with the estate’s logo (who uses a scythe to garden with? An embossed scythe???), ridiculously costly stumps of petrified wood, and, in a converted hay barn building, a complete line of muted, earth-toned linen tunics and discreet wraparound skirts specially designed for the estate. Oh, and Doga, a book about yoga for dogs.

I’ve heard swags of stories about this place and its owners, each more outré than the last, but this one takes the cake. Allegedly, the lady behind this grass-fed organic madness decided she wanted garlands of Parma hams to festoon the farm shop, so each week she had eleven flown up from Italy on her private plane. Naturally, the shop couldn’t sell eleven Parma hams, so at the end of the week, they were all thrown out to make way for the following week’s shipment. Très sustainable, signora. Other whispers snidely recount her purchasing a bushel of gorgeous melons on sale at a shop in….well, somewhere nice (the family owns extraordinary homes in most of the pretty corners of the world). She bought them all and had them air-lifted to the farmshop. When the managers costed out the price of the melons, they realized they’d have to charge ₤45 per melon to break even. Of course, no one bought any. All the lovely melons rotted away. 

Blunts, Bitches and Bayley Hazen Blue

I first met Mateo Kehler at a trade show in Chicago last May, where we both spent four days uninspiredly tasting our cheese out to people wearing Unilever and Kraft badges. I liked him right away: he breathed intensity, had traveled the world, held people’s gazes fiercely, and loved the dairy, where he'd spent a few years.

Mateo, his wife Angie, his brother Mateo, and his brother’s wife Victoria make cheese in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, where summers mean a few months’ worth of everlasting days and otherwise snowfalls swathe the world in white eiderdown. The quatuor make what many American cheesemongers and restaurateurs consider to be among the best American cheeses currently in production, all raw-milk: Bayley Hazen blue, a natural-rinded, hand-pierced seven-pound drum akin to Blue Wensleydale; Constant Bliss, a sixty-day bloomy-rind with a chalky heart enveloped in cream; the Winnemere, which wears a spruce collar to prevent its gooey center from gushing out and is washed in home-brewed beer; and Aspenhurst, which is sort of like Maggie Maxwell’s Doddington: cheddar-y, sweet. The Winnemere is currently on the menu at Per Se and The French Laundry, paired with Mateo’s neighbor’s beer—oh, and Hugh Hefner just ordered a few wheels for the Playboy Mansion. I imagine Mateo and his kin equally at ease in either.

Stilton Juice

Let’s say you’re a Scottish book dealer taking some precious old manuscripts down from Edinburgh to London on the Great North Road. It’s 1730. Your carriage stops in the town of Stilton for the night, perhaps even at the Bell Inn. What’s for dinner?

Well, probably lots of meat: pigeon, ducks, snipes or partridge, served cold unless you were feeling fancy. In tight times, pease pudding (dried peas simmered in stock or water with celery, onion and seasoning) or gruel, (boiled oatmeal with a little butter and sometimes strengthened with a few drops of wine). Probably not uncooked fruit, as your contemporaries believed it led to indigestion or even the plague, or tea, as it was ruinously expensive unless someone’s shady servants had swept up the bottom of their master’s teacups, dried, rolled and re-sold the leaves on the cheap.

There’s a good chance, however, that you’d finish off the meal with a local delicacy, the whitish-yellow, blue-veined cheese that absorbed the name of the town it was most often served in, Stilton. At the time, it may have teemed with mites and maggots—Defoe, calling it ‘our English Parmesan,’ wrote that they ‘bring a spoon for you to eat the mites with, as you do the cheese.’ This didn’t seem to bother people—in its heyday, the Bell Inn at Stilton could command 2 shillings and 6 pence a pound, a price Stilton wouldn’t again reach for 202 years.

Today, no Stilton comes from the actual town of Stilton (the cheese became famous because it was served rather than made there, anyway). Limits of production demarcate Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire as authentic Stilton cheese territory. However, the fame of the cheese now supersedes the town, which has been less important ever since the replacement of the less glamorous but admittedly more practical A1 for the Great North Road.