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Here you can see where we learned how to make delicious fresh goat's cheese, and Gouda-type cheese
made of the milk of cows and goats in the summer of 2002.
On top of this page you can find hyperlinks to pages wich contain a
summary in pictures on the making of ....
Villenue is a biological farm
in the middle of France, some fifteen kilometers to the northeast of Montluçon.
The farm is mainly a goatfarm, but there are also some cows (for their own
use), pigs (which thrive on whey, a "waste product" from making
cheese), horses, and chickens. The farmers
grow their own wheat, barley and lupine, which are used as fodder for the
animals.
The farm is owned by some very nice Dutch people who work very hard. They
care for the welfare of their animals, and are proud of the products of
the farm.
Edit: It seems that the family has moved on, I have no idea whether the
farm is still run in the same way, or even if the family has moved their
business elsewhere.
If you want to make your own cheese, and
are looking for cheese moulds, the Dutch company
The Cheese Moulds Shop
has al kinds of cheese moulds.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that
you can easily make your own cheese at home. You don't need expensive
gear, just some cheese-forms and a cutter for the curd. You can eat fresh
cheese just one day after the production. If you want to taste your
Gouda cheese, you have to wait a couple of weeks. For older cheese you
have to wait longer still, if you can!
We also learned to make butter and yoghurt.
The most important issue if you want to be succesfull in cheese-making is
to work cleanly and accurately.
Cheese can be made of raw milk, or of
pasteurized milk. The EC wants to prohibit all production of cheese made
from raw milk. Pasteurized cheeses tend to be more uniform and less
fascinating to the tastebuds than cheese made from raw milk.
Because of the over-regulation by the EC of the production of cheese one
after the other countrywoman stops making her own cheeses to sell on the
local markets. Knowledge and experience of centuries are just
dissappearing, out of fear of the listeriabactery. It would be wiser to let
consumers take their own responsibility, and decide wether or not they
want to eat unpasteurized cheese or mayonnaise made with raw eggyolks. The
regulation by the EC is only advantageous to big companies which can make
the neccesary investments, and care more about profit than taste.
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