Latest news with #cheesemaking
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Wheel of 20th-century Italian cheese smashes record for oldest parmesan
A wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano has been celebrated as 'an authentic jewel of nature' after setting a longevity record for parmesan cheese. The still edible 36kg wheel was one of the last made in 1998 by Romano Camorani and his wife Silvia at their dairy in Poviglio, a small town in Italy's northern Emilia-Romagna region. The parmesan, estimated to be worth more than €20,000 (£16,880), was finally opened and sampled on Sunday at the age of 27 years and three months, beating the previous record of 21 years. 'The aroma and taste were out of this world,' said Camorani, adding that he still 'lovingly' looked after the wheel as it aged, despite no longer making cheese. Parmigiano Reggiano has the EU's protected designation of origin status, meaning it can only be produced in the Italian provinces of Reggio Emilia, Parma, Modena, Mantua and Bologna. Made with cow's milk, salt and animal rennet, the cheese ordinarily takes 12 to 36 months to mature, with extended aging occurring only in exceptional cases. The larger a parmesan wheel is, the more chance it has of ageing for longer. The cheese also needs to contain the right amount of fat, protein and salt in order to make it endure over time. The longer the parmesan matures, the more intense its flavour. It is up to the cheesemaker to decide how long they want the maturation process to last and when to open it. The long-aged parmesan is then tasted by a panel from the Parmigiano Reggiano consortium and only considered authentic if judged to be edible and up to standard, which Camorani's record-breaking wheel was. Nicola Bertinelli, president of the Parmigiano Reggiano consortium, said the opening of Camorani's wheel marked 'an extraordinary moment'. 'Because it demonstrates how this product can remain amazing over time without the use of preservatives,' he added. 'It's an authentic jewel of nature.' About 7kg of Camorani's cheese was eaten alongside drizzles of balsamic vinegar during the cutting ceremony at Acetaia Razzoli, a family-run balsamic vinegar producer founded by Giuliano Razzoli, an ex-Olympic ski champion. Other than the right combination of ingredients, Camorani believes the wheel's longevity is due to him 'lovingly caring' for the cheese as much as he would a child. 'I think it could have even lasted 30 years,' he said. But now he needs to decide what to do with it. The previous record-holding Parmigiano Reggiano, made in 2000 by a dairy owned by the late cheesemaker Erio Bertani, was auctioned for charity. 'Some people have said that I should put it on the Japanese market,' said Camorani. 'But I want to keep it local.' If somebody wants to buy the whole of what remains of the cheese, they can, although it will most likely be sold in pieces. Buyers can either order the cheese and collect it from Romano, or have it delivered. Parmigiano Reggiano is promoted by Nazionale del Parmigiano Reggiano, an association linked to the consortium that supports its members in competing in cheese contests around the world, including at the upcoming international cheese and dairy awards in the UK. Its goal is to beat a 28-year record set by an American cheddar cheese in 2013. Gabriele Arlotti, a spokesperson for the association, said there's already a Parmigiano Reggiano contender, although its location is under wraps.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Pineland Farms sells its historic Maine dairy herd
Jun. 2—NEW GLOUCESTER — Echoes reverberate off the walls of the dairy barn at Pineland Farms like they never have before. There's no hay covering the floors. The chirps of birds are no longer drowned out by moos. The barn is pristine because there are no more tenants. Pineland Farms has shut down its milking operation and sold off all but two cows in its Holstein herd, considered one of the oldest in the nation. It's keeping a pair of youngsters for educational purposes. It's a bittersweet change for staff at Pineland Farms — a farm, education center and major cheese producer with a large campus in New Gloucester. And it's an upsetting change for some community members. But milking and caring for 100 cows had become too costly — Pineland Farms said it lost $500,000 to $600,000 a year on the operation in recent years. Dairy producers across the state have expressed similar concerns: that costs are unsustainable, profits are shrinking and smaller farms in particular are struggling to stay afloat. The sale isn't foreshadowing the fall of Pineland Farms, though. Its educational programming is growing. And its cheesemaking business is going strong. It might sound counterintuitive, but Pineland believes parting ways with its Holsteins will make Maine's struggling dairy industry stronger. "We've had to think where our focus should be to help dairy in the long run," said Erik Hayward, executive vice president of Libra Foundation, which owns Pineland's nonprofit and for-profit arms. Even so, the cows' absence is noticeable. HOLSTEINS AT PINELAND The Libra Foundation purchased the 5,000-acre Pineland Farms property in 2000, replenishing the land left in disrepair by the state after it closed an institution for developmentally disabled adults and children. It built a tie-stall barn — a form of lodging, these days rare, for dairy cows where they can live and be milked without moving a hoof. And Pineland filled out that barn with the herd of Holsteins, which it purchased two years later. The herd's lineage dates back to the 1880s, when the Merrill family started breeding matriarch Trina Redstone Marvel, known as "Old Trina." It stayed in the Merrill family until the 1960s when Mike Wilson purchased the herd for his own farm in Gray. When the herd arrived at Pineland, there were about 200 Holsteins, half of which were milking cows. The count of calves, heifers and milking cows fell to 100 by this March, when the Holsteins left the property. Though the herd initially was the sole source of milk for Pineland's cheeses, that was short-lived. This year, the herd only contributed to about 10% of the 10 million pounds of milk Pineland uses to make cheese at its production facility in Bangor. Owning a herd of Holsteins is already an expensive endeavor. But Pineland had the additional burden of keeping its barn as clean as possible since it was on display to the public for demonstrations and field-trip tours. The animal barns have immaculately swept pathways and shop-vacced surfaces. Hayward said Pineland has for years effectively subsidized its commercial dairy operation. It wasn't financially viable to run such a small dairy operation anymore — a struggle that's affecting farms across the state. DAIRY INDUSTRY STRUGGLING Maine, at its height, had what was called the "Dairy Belt," from Waldo County, across to Kennebec County, into Somerset and Franklin counties and down to Androscoggin County. But the heritage industry is waning. In the 1950s, there were 4,500 dairy farms in Maine; today there are 135 that still ship milk commercially, according to Julie-Marie Bickford, executive director of the Maine Milk Commission. Maine dairy farms have an average 100 cows in their herd, compared to 250-300 nationally, Bickford said. The largest dairy producer in America, Rockview Family Farms in California, has 100,000 cows, according to trade publication The Bullvine. Maine's largest farm, Flood Brothers Farm in Clinton, has 1,700. "Someone in California once asked me what the average farm size was in Maine. And when I told them that, at the time, it was about 90 cows, they said, 'I'm sorry, it's not worth talking to you if you don't have at least 1,000 cows,'" Bickford said. And those smaller farms pay the price, struggling to keep up with the big players that the system favors. Small-scale dairy farmers have less negotiating power in how much money they sell their milk for. And they front the costs for shipping the milk, including a fee for a truck just stopping at a farm. Because there are few milk processors in the state, over 50% of raw, commercially made milk is shipped out of Maine, making those costs even higher than in other states. "Having 60 Holsteins milking, is more of a commercial operation done at a demonstration scale, which any farmer in the state would look at and say, 'You guys are losing your shirts,'" Hayward, at the Libra Foundation, joked. "It was a question of where do we focus those resources and our energy?" That focus has ultimately landed on supporting the rest of Maine's dairy industry. "As the largest cheese producer in Maine, right out of the gates, we need to be able to put a dent in that lack of processing capacity in the state," Hayward said. Pineland Farms has committed to only using milk from Maine farms. And the money the organization will save from cutting down the Holstein costs can go toward beefing up cheese production. The organization made an average $2,100 for selling each cow, which varied from the 60 milking cows to the 40 heifers and calves. Amanda Beal, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, believes that these kinds of creative partnerships are key to the future success of the industry. "We are seeing promising innovation in the works," she said in an emailed statement. SAYING GOODBYE Brittany Moon grew up with cows on her family farm. She's used to seeing animals come and go. Still, the education department assistant director said it was weird to say goodbye to 100 cows all at once. The first thing she noticed when she came to visit the barn after the cleanup was the resounding echo. She misses the bonds she formed. But Cathryn Anderson, the education department director, said there are plenty of possibilities moving forward, to grow educational opportunities and shift Pineland's purpose. "Certainly there's a sadness, not seeing all the cows that used to be here day to day," Anderson said. "But there's also an excitement of what can happen." The hardest part of the process, however, was the reaction from the community. There were families visiting the cows every day, some coming once a week. After announcing the cows' departure in social media posts, Pineland got what Hayward described as a "flurry of comments" from people who were either disappointed, sad or concerned about the cows' safety. "Hopefully they'll go to a sanctuary and not directly to a slaughterhouse," one person commented. Hayward, Moon and Anderson all emphasized that they were not only headed to dairy farms, but that a majority of the herd was staying together, continuing the lineage and legacy. Most are headed to two farms in New York and Vermont, while a few others have been rehomed to local farm owners. "It was nice to think that even though they're not here anymore, there are groups of cows that came from Pineland who are still together out there in the world," Moon said. "We're spreading the genetics that we had worked so hard on, that are now benefiting other farms, and they're getting to have these really high-producing, long-living animals, because we worked so hard to make them be such great cows." And it's not the last of the cows on Pineland's property. Highland cows continue to roam the property. And there are two members of the "T" family (which means the direct line to Tina, the original, 1880s era matriarch) holding down the fort: Timber and Thunder. "The "T" family is what started Pineland," Moon said. "It's poetic that we decided to keep these ones specifically, to keep that legacy going." Copy the Story Link
Times
21-05-2025
- Times
Cheesemaker rivals swap dairies to put terroir to the test
Artisan food and drink producers often wax lyrical about terroir, the French term for the flavour imparted by the natural environment from which it is created. One of the victims of last year's Great Cheese Robbery, in which 22 tonnes of the world's best cheddar was stolen from an artisan wholesaler, has put terroir to the test in a unique experiment by swapping dairies for the day with a rival cheesemaker, to see what difference it makes. 'As far as I know, no one in cheesemaking has done this before,' Ben Ticehurst, head cheesemaker at Trethowan Brothers dairy in Somerset, said before tasting the new creations at a private event for British fromage fanatics. Trethowan had 12 tonnes of Pitchfork cheddar taken last year by
BBC News
21-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
'You can eat a different UK cheese 365 days a year'
"In the British Isles you can eat a cheese from a different cheese-maker every day of the year."Matthew O'Callaghan, chair of the Artisan Cheese Awards 2025 believes there is now a huge choice for consumers as a result of a recent "renaissance" in the art of cheese-making in the said there had been a "record" 650 entries from 123 producers in the cheese awards at Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire this O'Callaghan said previously consumers had been largely restricted to a small variety of cheese made by large companies with just a few regional cheese-makers. "In the past we've had the industrial block cheddar but now the small micro-producer is expanding our ranges of cheeses, including continental ones and experimental cheeses," he said."We've got 20 classes here of different types and it's wonderful to see this blossoming of the British cheese scene."Mr O'Callaghan said the entries at this year's awards had come from across the UK and Ireland."The French boast that they can eat a different cheese every day of the year and in the British Isles, we can eat a different cheese from a different cheese-maker every day of the year, the variety is enormous," he said. Tim Rowcliffe, an ambassador for the Specialist Cheesemakers Association, said the variety of cheeses in the UK were reduced during World War Two."It was all about feeding an island nation," he said."The Milk Marketing Board formed to regulate and govern what happened to milk in the UK and as a consequence the vast variety of cheeses that were being produced... got focussed into cheddar."Pre-war the biggest selling cheese in the UK was Cheshire Cheese, that all but disappeared. "It saved the dairy industry but knocked out all the individual makers." Mr Rowcliffe said efforts began in the 1960s and 70s to boost the numbers of small cheese producers."I cannot tell you how amazing the growth is over a relatively short space of time," he said."We now make more cheeses in this country than France."The winners of the 2025 awards were judged on Thursday and will be announced at the Artisan Cheese Fair held in Melton's Cattle Market on 24-25 May.
CNET
18-05-2025
- Business
- CNET
I Tried Fromaggio, a New $785 At-Home Cheesemaker. Here's How It Went
CNET's expert staff reviews and rates dozens of new products and services each month, building on more than a quarter century of expertise. I tried the $785 Fromaggio at-home cheesemaker. Fromaggio If cheese is one of your favorite foods but your town lacks a decent cheesemonger, there are online shops and subscriptions to find the best comté and camembert. Another option is to make it yourself. Sounds impossible, right? Home cheesemaking is a hobby that can be fun and delicious, but making a hunk of cheddar or supple fresh mozzarella that's as good as a commercially produced version has a steep learning curve. Enter the Fromaggio, a smart home cheesemaking machine created to help you achieve your DIY cheese dreams. I've been working in cheese in some form -- buying it, selling it, marketing it, teaching classes on it, writing about it -- for 17 years. When an ad for the Fromaggio popped up on my Instagram Stories feed, I was intrigued. Anyone can learn to make cheese at home, but it takes quite a bit of time, energy and education to do well. Along with quality milk, there are special ingredients to track down, like cultures, rennet and even special salt. But the gear you need for many home cheesemaking projects is pretty basic: a big pot, a strainer, a slotted spoon and a long, sharp knife. How did this smart device stack up against the usual low-tech DIY cheesemaking gear? I took it for a spin to find out. The Fromaggio at a glance The Fromaggio is about the same size as your standard drip coffee maker. Alex Jones/CNET This smart home cheesemaking machine is the result of Fromaggio founder Glen Feder's time living in Paris, where he developed a taste for artisan wheels that can be scarce, pricey or both to find in the US. The company launched via Kickstarter in 2019 with more than 1,000 backers, but pandemic-related delays and the usual startup challenges meant the device didn't start shipping until 2024. The Fromaggio looks a bit like a souped-up blender, with a sturdy base that houses both the motor and the LCD touchscreen interface. (It somewhat resembles Thermomix, the European kitchen multitasker.) Its components are designed to perform the basic steps of cheesemaking: heating the milk, stirring in the cultures and rennet, cutting the curd and draining. Read more: An Expert's Guide to Buying Great Cheese at the Grocery Store Like a blender, the three-liter stainless steel heating pot has a motor in the bottom that attaches to plastic paddles designed to mix ingredients and, later in the process, cut the curd into pieces. A fine-mesh draining pan holds the curd while it releases the whey. Other accessories include a silicone spatula, a sharp mixing blade for finely cutting curds when making cheeses like parmesan, and a cleaning brush. The whole shebang, except for the base, is dishwasher safe. How this home cheesemaking machine works In my experience, the two main challenges to starting a home cheesemaking habit are a lack of knowledge and difficulty maintaining the temperatures needed for many recipes with the average kitchen's equipment. Part of the way Fromaggio makes cheesemaking more accessible is through its recipes, which take users step-by-step through the process of making different types of cheese. You can access preprogrammed recipes via the Fromaggio app or the machine's touchscreen interface and follow the prompts, or you can program your own recipe and send it to the device via Fromaggio's smartphone app. Mozzarella draining in the Fromaggio/ Alex Jones/CNET Even the most advanced home cheesemaking machine will need a human for some tasks. During operation, the machine beeps when it needs you to add cultures or flip draining curds; if you don't want to be tied to your kitchen, you can set the smartphone app to notify you when it's time to step in. You can make several soft cheeses and yogurt in the Fromaggio You can make yogurt in addition to a range of soft cheeses in the Fromaggio. CNET Fromaggio includes several dozen recipes for yogurt and fresh or brined cheeses like mozzarella, feta, queso fresco, cream cheese and chèvre. The app also includes recipes for aged cheese styles like cheddar, Camembert, provolone and parmesan, though you'll need some kind of climate-controlled aging setup beyond your standard household fridge to age out those wheels. Secondly, the Fromaggio solves the problem of providing consistent heat at different temperatures, a must throughout the cheesemaking process. After the initial heating of the milk, there are multiple points where the milk just needs to sit at a specific temperature for a time while cultures or rennet work their magic, which can be difficult or impossible to do consistently at home without special equipment. The Fromaggio not only solves this problem, but it also takes the guesswork out of maintaining the proper temperature to execute its recipes. What I liked about the Fromaggio Alex Jones/CNET Overall, the Fromaggio does what it claims to do: It takes you from zero to home cheesemaker, right out of the box. Setting up the machine and navigating the touchscreen interface were pretty straightforward. The LCD display is clear and mostly easy to navigate, and the machine looks impressive sitting on your countertop. I chose a recipe, added milk and hit "start." Honestly, the idea of a home cheesemaking machine is no more esoteric than an ice cream maker or bread machine, and using the Fromaggio makes me wonder why it took so long for someone to market this idea. It's fun to see the little paddle stirring the milk and then cutting the curd. It's also great to be able to do other things without having to tend to a stovetop or constantly check temperatures during periods of downtime. Making cheese at home can be an all-day -- or multiple-day -- process, but the Fromaggio lets you, to some extent, set it and forget it. Halloumi curds ready for the next step. Alex Jones/CNET For my first batch, I decided to try Fromaggio's recipe for halloumi, a cheese whose unique make process and pH make it grillable without melting. I happened to be working on a goat farm at the time, so I sourced some of their milk for the recipe. I went about my day, listening for the beep when it was time to add an ingredient, which Fromaggio sells in convenient packets preportioned for their recipes, drain the curds or shape wheels. Fromaggio's recipe is for a dry-brined halloumi, made by salting the surface of the finished wheels and then allowing it to penetrate over a number of hours. In the future, I'd make this with a wet brine instead, as I found the dry-brined wheels I made to be a little dry after frying. But hey, they were still quite tasty. What I didn't like about the Fromaggio Smartphone connectivity and the recipe interface The former was a fluke of my circumstances. I was on a rural Wi-Fi connection that the Fromaggio didn't even pick up as an option to connect with -- something to do with Wi-Fi speeds. (Feder later told me this has only been a problem at hotels in the past, so I suspect it wouldn't be an issue in the average home.) Alex Jones/CNET This meant I couldn't connect my smartphone to the device or get mobile notifications during cheese makes, but I was still able to browse and start recipes via the touchscreen. However, the interface could be a little buggy. When I attempted to stretch a batch of cultured mozzarella, one of the more challenging fresh cheese recipes Fromaggio includes, I tried to repeat a heating step during stretching. I ended up having to cycle through a few dozen steps to get back to that point in the recipe, without getting the machine to do what I wanted it to do, which was perform the heating step again. Another challenge is yield Don't expect a mountain of cheese after each hours-long cycle. Pamela Vachon/CNET The heating vessel only holds three liters of milk -- not even a full gallon -- meaning that you're left with only a pound or two of cheese at the end of what's still an hours-long process. Feder gets this feedback a lot, and he's working on a model with double the capacity to give home cheesemakers more bang for each cheesemaking session. I also wondered about keeping things clean; much of cheesemaking, at home or in a commercial creamery, is cleaning and sanitizing. After making cheese, Feder recommends running all the components except the base through your dishwasher and then running the machine's cleaning cycle, which heats water and dish soap to pasteurization temperature. However, the UX for the cleaning cycle is a little unclear, and it was difficult to tell if I had started the cycle (which doesn't start counting down time until it hits temperature) or not. There is no sanitizing step in the cleaning process I consulted with Prateek Sharma, associate professor of food science at Utah State University and a member of the Institute of Food Technologists' Dairy Foods Division, who told me that, although the standard in commercial cheesemaking includes sanitizer as well as heat, a heating step alone could sufficiently reduce a food safety risk. When I asked Feder about this, he told me that a new version of the Fromaggio's manual, in addition to a new quick-start guide, will recommend using a no-rinse sanitizer. The Fromaggio has a cleaning cycle, but it lacks proper sanitization. Alex Jones/CNET Finally, if you do plan to level up your home cheesemaking hobby with aged cheeses, you'll need some next-level gear in addition to the Fromaggio. Hard cheeses like cheddar and parmesan require serious pressure to expel sufficient moisture for them to age, which requires a press. Fromaggio sells a reasonably priced, home-scale stainless steel model to accompany the machine. What the company doesn't sell (yet, anyway) is a device for aging cheeses at the very specific temperatures and humidity levels they require. Recipes for aged cheeses simply end with the instruction to age them at a certain temperature and humidity for a certain amount of time, which, if you're a total novice and don't read the entire recipe before starting, may come as an unpleasant surprise. Read more: I Found the Best Way to Make a Grilled Cheese and It's Not in a Frying Pan Typically, a wine fridge or mini fridge fitted with a device to modify and monitor temperature and humidity is required for aging cheese at home. So until you're ready to take that leap, it's best to use the Fromaggio to make fresh cheeses like mozzarella, burrata and feta. Final verdict on the Fromaggio One of my big gripes with the pricey Fromaggio is that you don't learn any real cheesemaking skills. Fromaggio The Fromaggio was undoubtedly fun to play with, and with more time and experimentation with different recipes, I probably could have dialed in the processes a little more closely. I think it does what it claims, which is that it enables you to go from zero to cheesemaker right out of the box, and provides a simpler, more streamlined option for home cheesemaking than the old-school method. Plus, there's nothing like it on the market. The alternative is DIYing with pots, pans and milk thermometers. Can you learn to make cheese without surrendering the counter space and the $745 that the Fromaggio costs? Absolutely. But if you want to go all-in on your new hobby and make the cheesemaking process a little simpler and less time-intensive, the Fromaggio can jumpstart that process for you. Overall, however, the main drawback of the Fromaggio is that, as convenient as its self-contained construction and automatic steps may be, you don't learn as much about cheesemaking as you could by taking a class, reading a detailed guidebook, or experimenting with standard kitchen equipment. In my years of teaching about and selling artisan cheese, I've found that people have a huge enthusiasm for it, and that those who want to make it themselves are fascinated by the seemingly magical process by which milk is transformed. Making cheese is a tactile experience, and while the Fromaggio does involve some hands-on steps, it also creates a little distance between what's happening inside the heating pot and the amateur cheesemaker.
