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Feeling Good about Buying Local: A Cheese Maker |
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Written by James Ringrose
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Thursday, 07 February 2008 11:34 |
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Good news though - thanks to a few determined and persistent vendors, the popularity of cheese has been on the rise for a while and young chefs appear to be more willing than ever to experiment with ways to include cheese courses on their menus. One of the most famous vendors is Formaggio Kitchen situated in Boston’s South End, Huron Avenue in Cambridge and New York’s Lower East Side. Formaggio’s co-owner Ihsan Gurdal, who was raised in Istanbul, is an active advocate for everything cheese. He has the rare honor of being inducted into the Guilde du Fromage.
I met Ihsan at his Cambridge store. It is an absolutely stunning shrine to all things cheese. When you step through the door the aromas that assail you are incredible. Your eyes sweep over hundreds (literally) of different handcrafted cheeses from around the world. Cheese is a seasonal product and to meet the increasing demand Fromaggio stocks cheeses as they come into “season” and are available, sometimes for several months, but on occasion rare cheeses are in season for just a few weeks.
Ihsan has an encyclopedic knowledge of cheese and a profound understanding of the current restaurant market. He spends part of his time helping chefs to develop cheese menus and pairings. “The way we work is to start restaurants off with a small amount of cheese that is perfectly cut,” he said. “We would rather ship several times a week than have a restaurant buy too much and have wastage.” Ihsan knows that if he can educate his marketplace then everyone wins and he will sell more product as a result. He asks chefs what they want to do with the cheese. “Are they looking for an appetizer plate? Perhaps that would be one perfect cheese or are they looking for a dessert menu that needs several options.” He encourages the restaurants to come in and sample the cheeses. “We give them about eight options for a tasting and then trim that down to four, but try and keep a balance with a goat, cow, sheep and blue cheese,” he explained. There is also the dimension of texture in terms of hard cheese, soft cheese and creamy.
Cheese is comparatively expensive these days, with many varieties running at around $20 per pound. Restaurants need to carefully manage portion sizes to ensure that cheese courses remain cost effective. There is also an obvious risk of wastage if a particular cheese is not popular.
Because of the currently weak dollar, non-US cheese is increasingly expensive. The combination of rising costs and a strong trend toward locally made food products has opened up a market for local cheese makers (Affiners). I asked Ihsan about the cheeses made here in New England. He was very enthusiastic and surprised me by talking about blue cheeses, soft goat’s cheeses and a range of other varieties that far exceeded the “Vermont Cheddar” that I assumed was pretty much all that you could get locally.
Ihsan suggested that I visit Westfield Farms in Hubbarston, MA to find out more. Unlike my adventure last month to find a beef producer, Hubbardston is only an hour outside Boston in a delightful rural area north of Worcester. Owners Bob and Debbie Stetson make a range of cheeses from blue cow’s milk cheese through to fresh goat’s cheeses.
They took over the farm 11 years ago from Bob Kilmoyer - a math professor and his wife. Bob Stetson was an overstressed shipping company owner, who had tried his hand at journalism before looking for a new business. “I was reading the Boston Globe one day when I saw the farm for sale, it sort of called to me!” he joked. Neither he nor his wife Debbie knew anything about cheese making or for that matter farming. How Bob persuaded his wife to leave Boston and move to a remote farm full of vats of fermenting goat’s milk and maturing cheeses remains something of a mystery.
Westfield gets milk from several local dairies. One of their most popular products is a Wasabi flavored goat’s cheese, but my favorite was the chocolate goat’s cheese - it was delicious.
Making cheese is a bit of a hit and miss affair. There’s a lot of stirring and draining and waiting involved. Rather like wine production, you never quite know what you have until it’s made.
The Stetsons have seen a steady growth in demand over the years. Not that it has been easy to be a cheese maker. The increasing concern about cholesterol and low-fat diets have impacted their sales in previous years. However the new “eat local” trend suits them well and their wide range of cheeses means that they have something for everyone, including restaurants looking for a more sophisticated cheese. Cheese making is a craft and an ancient one at that, modern chemistry helps out these days, Legend has it that Debbie once buried a batch in the back yard - it was that bad. And on other occasions they have made cheeses so delectable that they struggle to try and repeat the process.
Long may they continue to stir and drain and press and long may the likes of Formaggio continue to educate and build the market for these terrific local cheeses.
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Food and Beverage 
