The Curious Alchemy of Cheesemaking

”Milk’s leap into immortality” ​ — Clifton Fadiman

The ancient Swiss Alps method of cheesemaking required 100 days of manual labor. The summer, so hot in the valley, was the perfect season to take the herds into the mountains. There was plentiful wildflowers, grasses, and herbs to forage. The cheesemaker could work with the herd to capture the nutrients of the season and provide for the community through the winter. They did this by turning milk into one of mankind’s oldest foods: cheese!

Milk contains all the nutrition you need to stay alive, and turning that milk into cheese is a way of preserving that nutrition. Mountain cheeses are a bit of sun on a winter’s day.

All around the country, such old time cheesemaking traditions are being fostered. Curious about the process and how hard it really was to make your own cheese, I headed over to the home of a friend who had recently begun the care of a small herd of goats.

It takes a while to make cheese, so we start early. We were going to make feta from scratch, as well as some chevre.