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PORTSIDE CULTURE

THIS CHEESE IS YOUR CHEESE  
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Hannah Walhout
November 7, 2024
Ambrook Research [[link removed]]

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_ There’s a literal wide world of cheeses out there. As U.S.
dairies struggle, should we be making more of them? Sometimes, this
can make all the difference in keeping a farm in business. _

U. S. dairies produce a wide variety of cheeses, Graphic by Adam
Dixon

 

Carmen Licon wants us to eat more cotija. And requesón, and kefir,
and paneer. Licon is the founder of the MILKulture Institute, a
multidisciplinary project under the USDA’s Dairy Business Innovation
Initiative that’s aimed at helping regional producers develop and
promote “ethnic” and international dairy products — and getting
more types of people, from more backgrounds, interested in a career in
dairy.

Licon, who is also the director of Cal Poly’s Dairy Products
Technology Center, sees this work as especially important in the
context of current challenges facing dairy farmers around the country.
The latest Census of Agriculture indicates that, while U.S. milk
production rose slightly between 2017 and 2022, the number of cow
dairy operations declined by nearly 40 percent. Labor shortages, too,
are a constant. Meanwhile, people are drinking less milk — but
they’re also eating more cheese, with per capita consumption growing
steadily in recent decades.

For the small dairies that remain, innovating products and
diversifying their businesses — and getting the next generation
excited about keeping them going — is a priority. Could one path
forward be to expand our idea of what dairy products look like?

Take “Hispanic” cheeses, the USDA term for the cheeses of Latin
America. Annual consumption has more than quadrupled since the
designation was first formalized in 1996; in 2022, it was close to the
figure for Swiss cheese and higher than blue, brick, and muenster.
Still, quality options can be lacking. “We don’t have a lot of
artisanal cheesemakers making Hispanic styles,” Licon explained,
noting that it is the fastest-growing category in the country. “We
can do more.”

Licon was born and raised in Chihuahua, one of Mexico’s main
dairy-producing states — known for cheeses like the eponymous queso
Chihuahua, a smooth, melty cousin of Monterey Jack. Both sides of her
family worked in the industry. “I grew up surrounded by
agriculture,” she said. “So dairy products have always been very
important for me, and part of my heritage.”

When she moved to California, she was impressed by how important the
dairy industry was there. Still, something wasn’t quite adding up.
“We have all these cultures here,” she told Ambrook Research —
but when it comes to dairy, “we don’t necessarily see ourselves
represented in the products that we see in the market.”

MILKulture hosts events, funds research projects, and offers grants to
producers interested in making culturally specific dairy products.
Dairy foods originating in the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin
America, especially, are slowly entering the lexicon of U.S. consumers
— though cheese is produced all over the world, from chhurpi, a hard
yak’s milk cheese from the Himalayas, to the Ethiopian fresh cheese
called ayib. Licon has organized a series of short courses at Cal Poly
covering global dairy products, including one on Hispanic and
Mediterranean cheeses in October. Next year, the plan is to do one
around acid-set cheese styles like paneer.

One hope is that multicultural dairy education will help dairy farmers
find new ideas and new customers. Plus, inspiring and funding artisan
producers can create more well-paying buyers for specialty dairy farms
that may not process their milk in-house. In a larger sense, more
kinds of dairy products produced in the U.S. will mean more milk being
sold here, too. “Let’s assume that someone is really into making
cheese, and now they want to make ice cream because they think that
Hispanic ice cream is a way to go,” Licon offered. “It benefits
the business that’s diversifying their portfolio, but it’s also
helping farmers, because they will be buying more milk.”

***

Mauricio Travesí Salgarolo, president of the Dallas-based Mozzarella
Company, can speak to the demand for a diversity of dairy products.
The first product made at the company’s small factory was, as might
be obvious, the one in its name — founder Paula Lambert fell in love
with mozzarella while traveling in Italy. But of course, this is not
the only cheese people eat in Texas. In the operation’s early years,
Lambert connected with local chefs, many of whom were helping build
the state’s burgeoning Southwestern and Tex-Mex dining scene. The
rich tradition of Mexican cheesemaking inspired her.

It wasn’t a huge leap from mozzarella to the company’s first
Mexican-style cheese, queso Oaxaca: Both are made with a similar
stretched-curd (or pasta filata) process that involves kneading and
pulling the cheese until it becomes pliable. That product, an early
success story, was launched more than 30 years ago. From there,
Salgarolo told Ambrook Research, “Paula continued to experiment.”

The team now hand-produces many other Mexican cheeses, and some that
cross other cultures and cuisines. This includes caciotta, an Italian
cheese, with added flavors like ancho or Mexican marigold mint.
Salgarolo knows of a few other producers in Texas making artisan
Mexican cheeses, but it’s a small cohort. (For context, around 30
percent of the state’s population is of Mexican ancestry.)

The Mozzarella Company does not have its own dairy operation; the
cow’s milk for most of its cheeses is sourced from Dairy Farmers of
America, a large national cooperative, and the goat’s milk, for
products like a goat cheese wrapped in hoja santa, from LaClare Farms
in Wisconsin.

LaClare also makes its own cheese, an operation that’s growing
rapidly with a $10 million expansion of the LaClare Family Creamery
completed in 2019. But many dairy farmers with smaller herds “choose
not to make their own cheese and will sell their milk to another
cheesemaker,” explained Ruth Flore, outreach advisor for the Oldways
Cheese Coalition. “And that cheesemaker may be buying milk from a
handful of farms.”

Artisan cheesemakers often like working with small dairies for the
higher quality and better transparency they provide, with more options
for sourcing from specific breeds or seeking out certain farming
practices. “It’s important to know that the health of the herd is
good, and that the milk has the components that a cheesemaker is
looking for,” said Flore, who was also former president of the
American Cheese Society. Plus, it often looks good to customers to be
able to point to where your milk is coming from. “A direct
conversation with the farmer — that’s what this generation now
wants to be able to do,” Flore noted.

What’s in it for the dairy farmers? For one thing, artisan
cheesemakers will often pay more than a farm could earn selling fluid
milk in bulk, especially if they’re looking for something specific,
like organic or A2 certification. Sometimes, this can make all the
difference in keeping a farm in business.

Still, Flore is realistic about the idea of small farms circumventing
the problems of the industry by finding the perfect cheesemaking
partner. “That’s a very pristine, perfect world,” she said.
“If you want to work with one farm for their milk, then you have to
be able and willing to buy their milk every day, as opposed to having
you buy their milk when you need it … So right there is a huge
commitment, even if it’s only 20 cows.”

But these types of direct sales are not the only opportunities Licon
sees for boosting dairy farmers. “Regardless of how and who is going
to process the milk, the fact that we have a higher offering of
products — that makes more milk usage,” Licon said. “Volume is
also important, especially in California, because we have very big
dairies. So the more volume they can get into products, it’s better
for everyone.”

***

Of course, there is also opportunity for farmers in doing value-added
products in-house — itself a huge commitment. Chapel’s Country
Creamery, in Maryland, makes both paneer and queso fresco; Brush Creek
Creamery in Idaho has won awards for its marinated labneh (strained
and preserved in oil, Levantine-style). In Washington, Ferndale
Farmstead co-owner Nidia Hernandez nods to her Mexican heritage with a
new line of cheeses called Familia del Norte, producing cotija, queso
asadero, queso Oaxaca, and more.

Much of Oldways Cheese Coalition’s work centers around supporting
demand for traditional products like these, especially “cheeses that
center on the milk, production practices, culture, and history,”
Flore explained. “You want people to know about their cultural
heritage,” — especially in a time when finding people interested
in cheesemaking is “like trying to find a needle in a haystack.”

For Karin Eide, owner of Spring Hill Farmstead Goat Cheese in
California’s Humboldt County, the connection between dairy and
heritage was only natural. “My mama was from Chihuahua,” she
explained, “so she is my inspiration on all the goats’ names
here” — Bonita, Guadalupe, and Pepita among them. These Mexican
roots also inspired her to branch out from the classic soft goat
cheeses she started her business with. Eide has tried adapting many
Mexican cheese styles, and also started making the goat-milk caramel
called cajeta, which she said she’s finally perfected.

Getting here took time: Eide got started in cheese 20 years ago, while
working an off-farm job. “It was very expensive, and still is, to be
a microdairy and cheese plant licensed with the state of
California,” she told Ambrook Research. But by 2019, she was able to
retire from that job, build her current creamery, and commit to cheese
full-time. “My dream was to make cheese for my community,” she
said — “and that is what I do.”

In the end, one of the goals for MILKulture is to inspire others to do
the same. The program has helped arrange student internships — not
just at hands-on dairy operations, but also in fields from engineering
to communications, a multidisciplinary approach that Licon hopes will
help broaden conceptions of what a career in dairy can mean. Students
have also led research on DEI initiatives in dairy workplaces. Short
courses offer technical assistance in both Spanish and English, and
the plan is to expand to other languages as well; Licon is working on
getting simultaneous translation for MILKulture’s new public webinar
series.

“It’s a way to celebrate this diversity, but also, it’s a call
to action,” Licon said of her work trying to thread the needle
between culinary heritage, product innovation, recruitment, and
resilience in the dairy industry. Perhaps, by showing people there’s
room for their culture in this field, everyone can benefit, in one way
or another.

“It’s not gonna solve all the problems, I know,” Licon said.
“But we’ll start somewhere.”

Hannah Walhout is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, New York. She
has previously been on staff at FoodPrint, _Travel +
Leisure,_ and _Food & Wine,_ and now covers food, culture, design,
sustainability, and the ways they collide for various print and
digital publications.

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