Cheese please!
I’m not sure where my interest in cheese began apart from
always loving to eat it. Raw in chucks, as a child picking cocktail sticks out
of an orange decorated with cubes of red cheddar, grated on salads, burgers or
pasta, melting on flat-crust Italian pizzas or, my favourite, oozing and
bubbling from the grill on old-school cheese-toasties. Bliss!
The flavour, texture and, even when I was younger, the smell
drew me in. On our many holidays ‘down the country’ the first thing which made
me aware we had reached our destination, whether it be Cork, Kerry, Galway or
some other wonderful new piece of Ireland I could explore, was the smell. I
would inhale the heavy scent of manure in the air and instantly think of
cheese. I still do!
That’s me on the donkey!!
The history of Irish farmstead cheeses is an ancient
story. The Irish word for cheese – cáis – is itself an ancient term, and
throughout Irish history milk and milk products – referred to as ban-bhia, or
white-meats – were central to the traditional Irish diet.
References to cheesemaking can be found in early Irish
literature. One particular twelfth century document entitled Aisling Mhic
Chonglinne (Vision of the Son of Conglinne) tells the story of how a
poet-scholar travels throughout the south west of Ireland trying to rid the gluttonous
king of a hunger demon ‘An Craos Deamhain’. In the text the author refers to
and gives descriptions of a number of cheeses, including the ‘sweet soft smooth
cheese Maothal’ and ‘a firm, dry Tanach’. There is also evidence that when
Irish monks such as St Gall travelled across Europe reintroducing many lost
skills during the medieval period that they also brought with them cheesemaking
skills.
(http://www.sheridanscheesemongers.com/irish-farmhouse-cheese-history/)
From the milk they made a number of varieties of cheese, including tanach, a hard-pressed cheese made from skim-milk; tath, a soft cheese made from heated sour-milk curds, which was likely similar to many modern Irish farmstead cheeses. There was also gruth, a curdy cheese made from buttermilk; mulchan, where buttermilk was beaten to form a soft cheese which was then set in a mould, and milsean, a sweet milk curd cheese eaten at the end of the harvest festival.
And yet, despite this rich culinary tradition, the art of Irish farmstead cheesemaking effectively disappeared at the end of the 18th century. Potatoes had become the staple of the diet, taking over the sustaining role of cheese. Farmstead milk was used to make butter, which was exported to earn much-needed income, and whilst some cheesemaking may have taken place in monasteries and nunneries, hand-made farmstead cheeses vanished as a staple of the Irish diet.
This history is explored in an excellent program on TG4 ‘Bia
Duchais’ - the Story Of Ireland's Best Loved Foods. The six-part documentary
series covered six of our best-loved staples; Pork, Salmon, the Potato, Grains,
Cheese and Honey, traces how these foods have run the gauntlet for over a
thousand years to remain staples in our kitchen cupboard up until this day
showing that the very same flavours that sat on the taste buds of our ancestors
are still an active, real part of our lives.
Cheese was thought to have been discovered accidentally several
millennia ago when goat herders in North Africa or the Middle East stored milk
in a container made from the stomach of a ruminant, resulting in the milk being
turned to curd and whey by the rennet remaining in the stomach.
This became a common method of preserving milk which soured
quickly without the aid of a cool room or fridge, especially in hotter
countries.
This method made its way to Ireland and we preserved our
milk by making various cheeses and butter which we commonly stored in bogs to
preserve it over winter. On April 29, 2011, there were press reports of a find
of approximately 100 pounds (45 kg) of bog butter in Tullamore, Co. Offaly
thought to date back about five millennia.
It wasn’t until the 1900’s that Irish agriculturists began
to look at cheesemaking again. At this time the farmers’ co-operative movement
began and cheese production focused on supplying the Irish and particularly UK
market with large scale production cheddars; these have now developed into our
famous creamery cheddars. The larger societies such as the federation of
creameries in Limerick known as Golden Vale or the more closely integrated
Mitchelstown Creameries in north Cork diversified into a new range of products,
cheeses, milk powder and dairy engineering.
The emphasis, however, was on quantity over quality thus
brands such as Galtee and Calvita are what we associate with the cheese we ate
in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.
But a change began to immerge in the quality of our cheese for
a number of reasons:
Farmers were looking at ways of using their excess milk (due
to EU quotas) to supplement their income and people (some Irish, some from already
established cheese-making countries) who had decided to turn their backs on
city-living for a simpler, more grounded pace of life turned to cheese as a way
of making an alternative living or income.
They began making farmhouse cheeses, some based on old
traditional Irish cheeses and others on methods from abroad.
This leads to a second reason why the quality of cheese
began to improve. Our appetite for excellent cheese was wetted when traveling
abroad and we now wanted to enjoy these cheeses at home. Thus a market for good
cheese was born. We started to import Brie, Camembert, Mozzarella, Gouda, Edam
Parmesan, Feta and many more from countries such as France, Italy, Switzerland
and Holland where cheese was a huge part of their culture and identity.
Fortunately these forward-thinking farmers and cheese-makers
in Ireland seized this opportunity to start making Irish farmhouse artisan
cheeses to match the quality of the cheese we were importing.
These reasons partnered with the fact that we have an
outstanding quality of milk due to grass-grazed animals and world-class farming
methods led to the beginning of a revolution in Irish cheese which continues to
flourish and grow today.
The history of cheese in Ireland and the success being
enjoyed today brings me back to my interest in cheese. While looking at ways of
moving career and figuring out how I could earn an income from food I began to
look at cheese as a possible way of doing so.
I bought the wonderful book ‘Farmhouse Cheeses of Ireland –
A Celebration’ by Glynn Anderson & John McLaughlin which is a must for any
cheese-lover. It is an index for all our wonderful cheese-makers and explains
the cheeses they produce and recipes using this cheeses.
My curiosity in how cheese is made led me to submitting an
application to the Farmhouse Cheese-making course ran by Teagasc, which is a
wonderful organisation responsible for the research and development in farming,
agriculture and the dairy industry in Ireland.
This is how I found myself driving into Teagasc in Fermoy,
Cork one sunny November morning where I had thankfully been accepted onto the
course along with 14 other cheese enthusiasts.
It was a 3-day course and covered everything from how cheese
was made to the composition of milk, microbiology, how to design a cheese-producing
premises, what packaging to use, health and safety, different types of cheese,
the sensory aspect of cheeses and what makes consumers pick different cheeses.
It was extremely detailed but I remember thinking how lucky
I was to be there surrounded by similarly passionate cheese-lovers while being taught
by some of the most learned and passionate people in the industry.
We made some cheese by hand on the first day so as to
understand the process to follow, timing involved and tests (pH and
temperature) involved.
On the second day we were brought to the Cheese Parlour
where we made 2 batches of cheese – a Cheddar and a Gouda-type cheese, both
using 450 litres of pasteurised milk. It is important to note that whether
cheese is made in a pot on a farm or in an industrial size plant it is a
science which must follow the same process, just on a different scale.
Without going into too much detail here is the process
followed -
***The most important factor to consider when making cheese is
that milk is variable - pasteurised/non-pasteurised/time of year/time of milking,
etc, i.e. it is never the same twice. Therefore great lengths must be taken
when putting a process in place and learning the skill involved in
understanding your milk.
Example of a Flow
Chart of Cheese Manufacturing Steps
(Ref: FSAI Farmhouse Cheesemakers Workbook Section 5: HACCP
P.28)
Raw milk production
- Raw milk purchase and transport
- Raw milk storage
- Milk pasteurisation
- Milk ripening (incubation with starter)/Acidification
- Rennet addition
- Cutting and stirring
- Cooking
- Draining
- Moulding and pressing
- Brining/salting
- Ripening
- Packaging
- Storage
Et voila! You have a wonderful cheese to enjoy and,
hopefully sell to hungry and eager customers.
The course gave me an appreciation for the hard work, skill,
time, patience, pride and love that go into these farmhouse cheeses which are
becoming more readily available in shops and markets around the country.
But it is up to the Irish people, us, to support, buy, spread the word and embrace cheese as part of our own Irish culture and
history – past and present.
