Cheesy

When the world seems a grim place and there is winter in the wind blowing across the empty stubble fields, the only thing to do is hunker down in the farmhouse kitchen of a friend and learn how to make cheese.

The friend is Sharon and the idea hatched in Cheddar (where else?) on a girls’ weekend break, youth hostelling and walking in Somerset. Having just circumnavigated Cheddar Gorge we were considering a cream tea the way you do, when we spotted the cheese shop at the bottom of the hill that winds up the narrow gorge. The small factory behind the shop is open to visitors and as we walked round and learned how they make their famous cheese it quickly became obvious that this was a small family business, very hands on, using traditional methods with minimal mechanization. The staff were very welcoming and passionate about their product and as we sampled it we could see why. This was not the cheddar you buy in the supermarket; this was something special, something unique, some of it matured, as it has always been, in the caves deep within the amazing geology of this beautiful area.

As we bought a collection of cheese to take home, Sharon invited me over to share in a cheese making session. She has been making her own cheese for a year or so now and is well qualified as a teacher, a very good cook, and the wife of a dairy farmer to run a cheesy day.

So, with Katie (of sheep fame) and Carla her dog, we rolled up at Sharon’s house on a bright clear-blue-sky day with a sharp wind blowing from the north. Collar up against the chill I knocked and opened the outhouse door and found myself eye to eye with a soft black and white bundle of twelve-week-old collie puppy. This was Bess, the newest member of the family, and a complete time waster if ever I saw one. After introductions, I wondered if I could smuggle her out at the end of the day but I suspected she would be missed.

Sharon has a real farmhouse kitchen; large and warm and living, with an ancient stove, an old dinning room table, a battered settee, a piano, a dresser, and shelves crammed with china, books, and photographs. There were a dozen or more flagons of cider popping away contently to themselves in one corner and a stack of jars of crab apple jelly waiting to be labelled and put away.

So, the day began; with a cup of coffee and a quick catch up on local gossip and then it was down to serious work. We started at the beginning with a trip down to the milking parlour to collect the raw milk we needed to produce our cheese.

We had decided to make mozzarella and a soft curd cheese. The process is amazingly simple. We kicked off with the mozzarella. Sharon gave us each a large stock pot and watched carefully as we poured our milk into them and dissolved citric acid and rennet in water ready to add at the appropriate time. As we warmed the milk on the cooker, Sharon lit the old stove, cautiously feeding it as it caught alight and spread heat through the kitchen. Under her watchful eye, we added the citric acid (we could have used lemon juice) and carefully carried the stock pots over to the ancient stove. Stirring gently, thermometer in hand, I leaned into the warmth of the range and through the large window beside me, watched the wind creep across the lawn, its long fingers scattering silent flurries of leaves into the air. How many women I wondered had stood beside this stove and stirred patiently waiting for milk to warm. I checked the thermometer, 90 ⁰; time to add the rennet which sets the proteins in the milk to form the solid curds.

Then we set it to one side and had another cup of coffee. There was a pattern developing here. Whilst we chatted and ate cake, a quiet miracle took place and when we lifted the lids of the pots there were the curds we had been hoping for. Then it got exciting as the curds were cut, reheated, and separated from the whey. Modern technology muscled in as the curds were placed in the microwave. Sharon brandished rubber gloves which we slipped on as the curds were removed, ready to squeeze the whey out of the hot, elastic cheese by carefully kneading it like bread. Then it was back into the microwave for thirty seconds, out again and the curds were folded, kneaded again and then stretched. We repeated this until the cheese was firm and glossy and ready to be shaped into that familiar ball of mozzarella.

Whilst the drama of the mozzarella was unfolding we had a go at making cream cheese. Similar process but a mesophilic starter rather than citric acid and it needed time to set. Which was fine because there was lunch; homemade soup and freshly baked bread, the dogs needed a walk and there was an old spinning wheel begging to be played with using some of the wool from our sheep.

We drove away (no chance to smuggle out the puppy) with tubs of soft, white, creamy cheese that we had made ourselves, and a warm glowing sense inside that we had shared in something that was very old. We had stepped into a tradition that stretches back centuries, dipped into a well of knowledge that goes deep down into our pasts. Like the cheese makers in Cheddar we had become a tiny cog in the wheel that keeps old country crafts alive to be passed down to new generations.

Will I make some more cheese? Oh yes, definitely! I might even invite my daughter round to help.