Culture Magazine

I N N OVAT I O N 202 2 culturecheesemag.com 31 V O I C I N G S anthem of the European community, it still brings tears to my eyes to think of that. And I know that not everything out of Europe is… nothing's perfect, but just that idealism and aspiration and countries working together. And I mean, I know this conflict in Ukraine is nothing to do with Europe, but was Russia emboldened by the idea of a divided West? Maybe a disengaged America and a fractious Britain? I don't know. Who knows. Certainly where I was with Europe was, it was about that idealism and the idea that countries could work different but in harmony. It's like you were forced into exile. MQ: [laughs] Yeah. Yes. I'm curious if there's anything about the artisan cheese community in the UK that you feel people in the American artisan cheese community don't quite understand, or that functions differently over there than what you've seen here. MQ: I had an amazing visit just now from Kerry Kaylegian. She's an academic from Penn State in the world of both food safety and artisan cheese, she came and stayed with me. So that's a real privilege, because we don't have so many of those scientifically knowledgeable, technically capable, and practically engaged people in the UK. And I love that about the American cheese community. And here, we're quite a close and small community. We have a Specialist Cheesemakers Association, which is a bit like ACS only it's just for the little guys, which is very technically supportive, very good at having conversations with government and our food standards agency, and we have an amazing Specialist Cheesemakers farm walk, which is a weekend away where we go and visit some cheesemaker and have a little conference and a feast and a hangout, and most people camp. A little cheese Woodstock! MQ: It's a cheese Woodstock! And it's really kind of got that feel. Many beverages are imbibed. So, the thing I noticed, going back to Kerry, is that in America that artisan cheesemaking has got a sort of pioneer approach, people who want to be different and separate and not engage with the processes of government. Whereas I think the approach that we've taken is that we want to have government really understand us and get behind what we're doing. You know, the Food Standards Agency, which would be like your FDA, I was a Food Standards Agency board member, because we need the correct regulation that's gonna work for small businesses and that's going to understand what artisan food is so that we can have a realm where, for instance, we can make raw-milk cheese. There's no limit on the age of raw-milk cheese that we can make here. Whereas the artisan cheese community in the US is, in some ways, a reaction against government-sanctioned cheese. MQ: And that's an interesting point, isn't it? When we started making cheese again in the 1970s, we definitely wanted to make clothbound cheese. And people said to my mom, I don't know why you're bothering making that old-fashioned cheese, why don't you make nice modern block cheese and you can grow much bigger? There was a bit of a time between the seventies and eighties when artisan cheese looked like it was the left-behind cheese. And then along came people like Randolph Hodgson of Neals Yard and Juliet Harbutt with the British Cheese Awards saying, "Hey guys, there's some amazing flavors here. We mustn't lose these. We mustn't forget it." I think American cheesemaking industrialized far sooner than British cheesemaking. So maybe all of those cheeses that Americans must have made in their farmhouses in the early years of the twentieth century and before, whatever cheeses they would've come over from Europe with, those are kind of long forgotten, whereas in this country, maybe things weren't so long forgotten. When we taste cheese to people in this country, older people would say, "Ah! That's the cheese I remember from when I was a child!" I had one guy say, "I tasted your cheese and it changed the course of my life because I realized cheese could be unique and an expression of a place." That's so lovely! MQ: Isn't it? People can start expressing what they want out of our food system with these things that are made by a person and coming from a place. The thing I'm getting really excited about right now is that we're working with this extraordinary unknowable complexity of the soil, and we have these heritage starters. And the way that cheese maturation happens, it's this incredibly complex process and you've got this unknowable complexity of the microflora around the cheese. So that's kind of a reflection of the world we're in where we're starting to manage these processes of climate change and we just have to deal with the fact that we're not the bosses! We're the stewards of our world and we're the stewards of our cheese and we're the stewards of our food. Am I making any sense at all? Yeah, it's beautiful! You're giving an inspirational speech! MQ: You know, the older I get the less I know, do you know what I mean? Yours is a great job to always be learning. MQ: And any solution to climate change or environmental issues has got to involve food and has got to involve consumers saying, "I want my food to be this way and not that way. I want my food to carry these values." And I can't see how you can make soils work unless you've got an animal step in the system. We can't keep just harvesting organic matter from the soil. I mean, that's why people say there's only 60 harvests left. And if you have an animal step in, then have that animal step be something that cycles nutrients through the system. Speaking of future harvests, do you know who wants to step in and take over the farm when you're no longer around? MQ: My daughter is in the process, and I'm so happy that she's joined the business. She's so capable and she's got that understanding of the scientific processes. I would consider it a real honor and a privilege if she felt that she wanted to join the business and take it forward. I know what I want, but in these multi-generational businesses, it's really important that people don't feel obligated. How you spend your life should give you the greatest pleasure and the greatest enjoyment rather than a sense of obligation. Work should touch you and inspire you and be something that fulfills you. That's been the privilege of my life and I wouldn't want anyone, particularly my own daughter, to be embarking on a future that didn't hold those things. You want someone who's as excited about soil as you are. MQ: [laughs] Well, or just… life is precious! This isn't a dry run! There isn't a real life 'round the corner that we're about to live, you know? Do what inspires you, 'cause this is it! I see that now from this end of the telescope, have the best time ever! Eat the most delicious cheese, enjoy every bit. You can't enjoy every bit, I didn't enjoy the Brexit vote, or the day after the Brexit vote. The downs make the ups that much better. MQ: Well, and shit happens. I don't know if you can write that, but stuff happens. And then it's about how you are about it. Isn't it? c

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