We hear it all the time. Artisan beer, artisan salami, artisan bread and artisan cheese. But what does it really mean? Dictionaries define artisan as a noun to describe skilled craftspeople who use their hands to make things. Before the industrial revolution, almost everything was artisan. The industrial revolution not only changed the way we manufactured everyday objects like crockery, couches, towels, clothes, shoes and pots but also the way we manufactured food. The concern about losing the traditional skills used to bake bread, brew beer, preserve meat and make cheese gathered momentum in the self-sustaining fever of the 70’s. Since then more and more people have committed to learning and mastering traditional food production skills.
Today, artisan food has come to mean high quality ingredients and traditional, non-mechanised methods of production. While we generally associate artisan with small scale producers making things by hand, this is not always the case. In the cheese world, artisan cheese can mean that the whole production process including, stirring the curds, ladling the curds into hoops, turning hoops and rubbing cheese is all done by hand. While this is a reality for many small producers such as Little White Goat Cheese in Wamuran, not all artisan cheese is made by hand. Artisan is fashionable. In marketing hyperbole it can simply mean that the cheese was turned by hand during maturation while the entire production was mechanised. To me artisan cheese means more than production by hand or machine. It is more about the skill of the cheesemaker. The way they have mastered their craft, work with the milk, understand their environment and respect the seasonal differences to create unique cheeses. Another way of describing it is real cheese. Cheese made from real milk by real people. Most importantly cheese that tastes good, like real food. A subset of artisan cheese is farmstead cheese. Cheese that is made on the same farm that produces the milk. While farmstead cheese adds pasture management, animal husbandry and milking to the long list of cheese making jobs, it gives the cheesemaker more control about the volumes and quality of the milk. This can create exceptional cheese that reflects the place it is made. In Australia we have many farmstead cheeses, a local example is Frolicking Goat. Artisan and farmstead cheese, real cheese, gives you, the cheese eater, a paddock to plate connection. It gives you a chance to eat quality ingredients produced with skill that reflects the place that it is made. It also helps keep the 11,000 years of cheese making tradition alive.
0 Comments
April 22nd is raw milk appreciation day. Like odd sock day, gratitude day, ugly truck day or speak like a pirate day, it promotes a special interest. But how can you not get excited about a day that celebrates thousands of years of cheesemaking tradition.
Raw milk appreciation day was developed by the Old Ways Cheese Coalition, a not for profit advocacy group based in Boston USA promoting traditional cheese. It is a celebration of unique flavours, history, animal husbandry and cheesemaking. Like all good celebrations it involves eating. On Saturday, you can try raw milk cheese at shops, farms and creameries around the world. Organised tastings and classes are being held in New York, London, Paris, Johannesburg, San Paulo, Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle. You can also have your own celebration at home. Raw milk cheese is made with unpasteurised milk. Pasteurisation heats milk to kill microbes that can be harmful to human health. While pasteurisation is common practice today, it is a new kid on the block in the history of cheese. Raw milk cheese has an unbroken tradition that started with Neolithic farmers in the Fertile Crescent. Today raw milk cheeses are still legally made around the world, including Australia. A well-known example is C2 made by Bruny Island Cheese Co. Others are imported. You may have eaten comté, parmesan, manchego or roquefort made from raw milk. Pasteurisation is a good thing and over the last century it has saved many lives. It is effective and kills most microbes. Including those that are important for flavour in cheese. For this reason, raw milk cheese can have greater complexity and interest. The indigenous microbes and enzymes in the milk are a product of the soil, climate, season, pasture and breed of the diary animal. Drawing on tradition and skill a cheesemaker can use raw milk to create cheeses that are unique to the place they are made. Or to use the French term, have the taste of terroir. I grew up drinking raw milk. We drank fresh creamy milk, ate beautiful homemade butter, but the cheese my mother made was terrible. This experience taught me two things. The first is respect for raw milk. Clean practices are important in the dairy industry, but you need to be extra vigilant with raw milk. The other thing it taught me is that cheese reflects the quality of the milk, but it is the skill of the cheesemaker that makes it good. Eating raw milk cheese is a personal choice. If you are game, join the celebrations and enjoy the history and tradition of artisan cheese. Easter is a celebration of new beginnings. To me, pure white fluffy ricotta, embodies renewal more than any other cheese. Even its name, derived from recocta, Latin for re-cooked, tells a story about a fresh start.
The art of making whey ricotta was mastered by the Sicilians sometime between the birth of Jesus and the Romans becoming Christian. They discovered that heating whey, a by-product of cheesemaking, with a bit of acid, such as lemon juice, vinegar or soured milk, encouraged the remaining protein to form cloud like curds. Curds that are delicate, sweet and hard to stop eating by the spoonful. Especially when fresh. Recently a friend asked me to make some ricotta and because sourcing a vat of whey is difficult, I decided to make the ancient whole milk version. One that has been made by Italians since the Bronze Age. I had never made whole milk ricotta before, but I like to think of myself as a diary women and was up for the challenge. Besides it used to be made in bronze pots over a fire. What could go wrong? To be honest, not much can go wrong. Poor technique may change the taste and texture of curds and reduce the yield, but you will always get some type of ricotta. And the ricotta you make will always taste better than the tubs you get in the supermarket. Simply because it is fresh. A fail safe recipe for whole milk ricotta is: Combine 6 litres of full cream milk with juice from about 5 lemons or 180ml vinegar in a large pan. Heat, stirring often, until it is just about to boil and curds begin to form and float to the surface. Remove the pan from the heat and let it set for 10 to 15 minutes before gently scooping the curds into a colander. Drain for at least 30 minutes. The difference between ricotta made with lemon juice rather than vinegar is subtle. Ricotta with lemon juice produces softer sweeter curds that take longer to drain. Ricotta made with vinegar has a higher yield with stronger curds. Both make a ricotta that remind me how good simple fresh food can be. A revolution is brewing. You can see signs of it in dairy’s, at farmers markets, in restaurants, delis and cheese counters across Australia. It started so innocently. We became used to seeing gouda, jarlsberg and brie sitting next to the coon. Then the French arrived. Fancy cheeses with history, tradition and foreign tastes. Some daringly unpasteurised. It changed our palates. We started to enjoy Munster that smelled like sweaty socks and the salty creamy spice of Roquefort made from ewe’s milk.
Now we better appreciate cheese. Small cheesemakers who have been making cheese for our Greek and Italian communities are joining forces with a new brand of cheesemaker. A cheesemaker that is inspired by European cheeses with centuries of history, such as comté, teleggio, manchego or stilton, but are not tied to tradition and have no desire to copy. By adding good quality local milk to thousands of years of cheesemaking knowledge Australians are making their own cheese. Cheese that reflects their local area and the tastes and lifestyle of the people who live there. These cheeses are creative and bold. Some of these cheeses, such as Frolicking Goat’s Liesel, is similar to its European cousin. It reminds you of the goat’s cheese that you would find in a walnut salad in the Loir Valley, but there is something different. It might be the hint of eucalypt from the trees nibbled by the goats or it could just be the creaminess of the milk. Other cheeses like Holy Goat’s La Luna are unique. Great Aussie cheeses like Bay of Fires Clothbound Cheddar, Bruny Island Cheese Co. C2 and Berrys Creek Riverine Blue are leading the charge. Fuelled by the deregulation of the dairy industry, the revolution is gathering momentum and more local cheeses are being made. You too can join the revolution. It is as simple as buying and eating Australian artisan cheese. If you want to be more involved tell your local cheesemaker what you liked about the cheese. Perhaps you might also tell them, respectfully and delicately, what you think could be improved. As the revolution is not just about making local cheese it is about making great tasting Australian artisan cheese. |
About the AuthorWendy studied affinage in France. Working in the Mons caves at St Haon le Chatel and many years of travelling has exposed her to cheeses from around the world. She enjoys and respects all cheeses, but her passion is Australian cheeses. Especially unique cheeses made by small producers. Archives
May 2017
Categories |