Growers and Grocers

I’m a new member of the Cheese Club at Melbourne’s Richmond Hill Café & Larder. This is serious business. The cheese room at this upscale institution run by Australian culinary doyenne Stephanie Alexander is a climate-controlled laboratory where giant wheels of cheese are stored, aged, ripened, and eventually displayed in the standing-room-only, glass-walled parlor that does a hefty business seven days a week. As a member, I now receive a booklet with editorial background on a selection of artisanal fresh, washed-rind, bloomy, pressed, and blue cheeses every seven weeks. (And, if I remember to place my order by the deadline, a sampler of those products arrives at my doorstep a week later.) It’s not surprising that in a city with more than 3,500 restaurants for 3.5 million residents, in a country where each state is home to at least one world-class wine region, people have a taste for fine cheese. What is surprising is that this is a relatively new phenomenon.

The history of cheese in Australia runs parallel to the history of processed food in the country. While Australians eat a lot of cheese (particular a Cheddar-style variety called Tasty Cheese), the national dairy industry produces even more cheese products for export. In fact, both Australia and New Zealand rank among the world’s top ten dairy producers, and an official report shows that more than 17,000 tonnes of Australian cheese were sent abroad in the 2005/2006 fiscal year. Just like in the United States, the dairy business here is a big-money business. That means that large-scale cheese makers rely on standardization to guarantee consistency and efficiency. Taste is decreased as a consequence. On top of that, Australia has some of the strictest food-safety regulations in the world. Pasteurization is the law of the land, meaning that all milk products must be heated to kill any traces of bacteria. Advocates of raw (that is, unpasteurized) milk argue that naturally-occurring bacteria not only impart added flavor to dairy products (which has certainly proved to be the case over several centuries in France) but also carry age-old health benefits. Inspired by the nutritional theories of Dr. Weston A. Price and taking a page from the American Real Milk project, a campaign called Real Milk Australia is gaining political momentum. But, for the moment, only a select few signature European raw-milk cheese (such as Roquefort) can be imported into Australia, and no Australian producer is permitted to sell a product made from unpasteurized milk. It turns out that there are as many factors working against Australia’s curds and whey, as there are working for them.

My latest mailer from the Cheese Club tells me that “the Australian cheese making industry is a tough one, so the birth of a new product is something to be toasted and encouraged, especially one this good.” The one it’s referring to is a handmade Camembert-style cheese made in the country town of Wangaratta by the Indigo Cheese Company. Despite all the obstacles, a country with as refined a palate as Australia is indeed be capable of producing exquisite cheeses.

Each of these Australian-native cheeses are worth the trip to the other side of the world:

Heidi Farm, Tasmania: On a pristine farm in northwest Tasmania, the Heidi Farm folks put out delicately-flavored yet hefty hard cheeses such as Gruyere, Raclette, and Tilsit.

Holy Goat Dairy, Victoria: These funky cheese makers use their expert knowledge to wrangle a herd of quadupeds and a strain of Geotrichum mold, resulting in some of the richest, most velvety goat cheese around.

Indigo Cheese Company, Victoria: French-trained cheese maker Paula Jenkin makes several varieties of earthy cheese from goat’s milk, as well as a few classic cow’s milk cheeses.

Kervella Cheese, Western Australia: These biodynamic goat’s cheeses are hand-crafted by Gabrielle Kervella, possibly the most talented and best-informed cheese maker in the country.