Somewhere along the whey

Chocolate, coffee, sourdough bread, yoghurt, pickles, kimchi, sauerkraut, miso, wine, beer, kombucha….

Why are so many of our favourite foods fermented? 

Is it the trillions of bacteria cohabiting in our long intestines that not only ferment our dietary fibre but regulate our moods and mental health? 

Do we love them because they love them?

We have such a strong affinity for ferments – they evoke passion, inspire exploration, experimentation and have the power to attract and repel us in equal measure.

It’s hard to think of a fermented food that has been taken to more extremes, coaxed into more flavours and textures and divided more people than cheese.

Cheesemaking is alchemic. 

Take whole milk, add bacteria to transform lactose into lactic acid, rennet to thicken curds. Squeeze off the whey, cook, shape, press, add salt and wait.  

From four simple ingredients, humans have created two thousand distinct types of cheese.

Organic dairy farmer Daniel Hales began his cheesemaking apprenticeship with Burke Brandon, founder of Prom Country Cheese.

Daniel wanted to make cheese so he could process more of his own organic milk on the farm and not be so beholden to the big dairy processors. 

He ended up buying Prom Country Cheese and somewhere along the way, like his milk, he was transformed too.

Four years after he first walked into the factory, a round of his Inverloch Blue, wrapped in vine leaves soaked in his neighbour’s wine, was named Best Australian Cheese at the World Cheese Awards.

Daniel’s farm in Bunurong/Gunai Kurnai country between Kongwak and Wonthaggi operates as a closed loop – pastures are sown with multiple species of grass, legumes, herbs and forbs. All the hay and silage are grown on the farm.

Daniel’s small herd (one hundred and forty cows) are milked just once a day and are protected from the prevailing south-westerlies by bushland and lots of shelter trees.

If happy cows make good milk, then good grass makes happy cows.

Daniel and his father, Paul, feed their mixed grasses with a liquid fertiliser they brew from old farm-grown pumpkins, hay, manure, waste silage and vegetable scraps.

Daniel says that being immersed in everything from soils, pastures, animals, milk, right through to making cheese is immensely satisfying.

The farm is only a short distance from the dairy factory at Moyarra – so within two hours of milking, Daniel’s milk is in a vat ready to be processed.

Prom Country’s flagship cheese is Glen Moidart, a gouda-style with a smear rind that’s cellared for over five months.

It’s Victoria’s first raw-milk, organic cow’s milk cheese.

Why raw milk?  Raw (not heat-treated) milk has a more complex bacterial community resulting in more complex-tasting cheeses that reflect the country the milk comes from.

Iconic European cheeses including Roquefort, some Camemberts, Parmigiano Reggiano and Gruyère are all required by law to be made from raw milk. 

Raw milk has a small added listeria risk – so Glen Moidart is aged longer and tested twice weekly for cell count and pathogens.

And while we couldn’t get hold of any of the very rare Inverloch Blue (try your luck at the Inverloch Foodworks), we do have Daniel’s Granny’s Blue, the densely blue workhorse of Prom Country’s cheeses as well as the wonderfully stinky washed rind Tully’s Gold and the Wattlebank Mist, a soft, bloomy-white-coat cheese that’s mild and ready to eat from about three weeks, but “unforgettable” by six weeks, when the golden surface flora starts doing its best work.

You can find Daniel Hales’ Prom Country Cheeses here.

 Survey thanks

Thanks to everyone (all five hundred and fifty of you) who took the time to fill out our recent survey – we were blown away by that response and very grateful for all the thoughts you shared.

For the people who grow their own leafy greens or are just not that into them, we have introduced the mixed fruit and veg box with no leafy greens.

We’ve also got bulk cannellini beans on special this week and we’ll do a different bulk can special every fortnight.

Of course there’s lots more to do and we have a very long list to get to work on.

Thank you again, it means a lot and helps a lot.

Have a great week.

Chris