A couple of weeks ago I attended an introductory cheesemaking course at Hartpury College, Gloucester. We were taught by Judy King, cheesemaker from nearby Wharf Farm Dairy. We made a cheddar method goats cheese which will mature in about two months. The photo shows the second cheddaring which is the process of re-cutting the curds, placing one block on top of another for more whey to drain out. See all my cheesemaking photos to understand the process.
Cheesemaking was a wonderfully fulfilling experience. The combination of the preciseness of a science to the magic of applying your intuition to get each stage right (the art) made for a truly religious experience. Cheesemaking allows all your engergies to flow from your head to hands to feet (you’re on your feet most of the day) which is a refreshing change after book reading. A lot of people are suspicious, ignorant or otherwise indifferent to cheese. A lot of things that parade as ‘cheese’ are not. Especially things like ‘cheese strings’. which is little more than a plastic drainpipe, melted, compressed, fried and dyed. Even the ‘cheese’ you get in most lunch time sandwiches has never felt the gentle hands of a cheesemaker or even the slow stir of a semi-mechanised dairy overseen by highly knowledgeable cheesemakers. Why do we so readily accept insipid pale sheets of linoleum? They should call this stuff ‘imitation cheese’ or something else altogether like ‘food slices’.
Cheese is a miracle. It’s alchemy. Turning milk into such brilliant fast food with the addition of starter culture (’friendly bacteria’) and rennet (based on fungi) should amaze people. It should also gladden people that cheese is still made in the way it should be, slowly by hand, with love.