Culture Magazine

52 culturecheesemag.com THE HOT LIS T 202 3 lament the loss of this stronger flavor, which is toned down as the cheese is now made on a larger scale for export markets. I spent time with a shepherd cheesemaker named Eneko Goiburu, one of the few who uses the abomasums from his flock to make a rennet paste for his cheese. He blends it with liquid rennet, so it is really used as an adjunct for flavor, and he can adjust the amount of paste for different customers. An animated storyteller and gracious host at his family's farm, which offers accommodations and meals to paying guests, Goiburu described his process as he demonstrated how he prepares rennet. Upon being received from the slaughterhouse, the abomasums are hung in a dry, cool space with lots of airflow. After a few weeks, they are fairly dry and can be stored in a freezer for up to one year. Once a month, he takes out five to eight of them, cuts them open, removes a ball of wool and any plant matter, and cuts the skin into small strips. The interior coagulated milk and skin strips are combined with 50 percent salt by weight and made into small balls, weighed out to the correct size for a full vat of milk. He mixes the paste balls with water an hour before making cheese, and strains this into the vat along with liquid lamb rennet. ON THE HOME FRONT The blending of coagulants in different ratios is a practice I think more cheesemakers in North America can utilize. One American cheesemaker already doing this is Yoav Perry at Perrystead Dairy in Philadelphia, who uses both traditional calf rennet from France and Iberian cardoon artichoke thistle in the making of his washed-rind wheel, Moonrise. In blending coagulants, Perry says he is "letting the dominoes fall in two THISTLE The most common plant coagulant is made f rom flowers of thistles in the genus Cynara, which includes artichokes. Cheesemakers can either harvest and dry the flowers themselves or purchase a premade liquid. Its use is usually associated with sheep's milk cheeses f rom Portugal and Extremadura, Spain, including in the latter's famous torta cheeses. Cheeses made with thistle rennet are characterized by a pleasantly bitter, vegetal flavor, and range f rom young, soft-ripened varieties to longer-aged cheeses. There is also a wider and lesser-known history of its use in places such as Catalonia and the Canary Islands. On Gran Canaria, the raw sheep's milk used to make Flor de Guía (which can also made with a mix of sheep, cow, and goat's milk) is coagulated with the purple flowers f rom a few types of thistles, which are often harvested f rom wild plants growing on the island. The PDO cheese is aged for two to six weeks, during which time it develops a thin rind that barely manages to contain its gooey interior. A longer-aged cheese is made with a blend of animal or synthetic rennet and thistle, known as Media Flor de Guía. Cheesemakers credit their goats and the use of artisanal rennet for creating signature characteristics in their cheese. Dried cardoon thistle flowers before the purple stamens are removed and soaked to make rennet The author experiences the aromas of animal rennet at the Cuajos Caporal production facility

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