Whey To Go!
Sun Herald
Sunday April 2, 2006
You won't need to say cheese to smile after making your own, Belinda Jackson writes.
LOVE is ... watching your own little cheese pass through the fluffy bunny stage to maturity.OK, so maybe those tacky, naked cartoon figures never actually said it, but that's the theory behind South Australian entrepreneur Dr Mark Potter's cheesemaking courses.For the princely sum of $120, he promises you will have the guests at your next dinner party eating out of your hands, literally, when you serve up the camembert made by yours truly.Where better to make your own cheese than in the heart of a wine region? And that's where these day-long courses are held - at the Blessed Cheese cafe at McLaren Vale, just south of Adelaide.As you probably could tell by descriptions such as "the fluffy bunny stage", you don't need a PhD in biochemistry (though Mark has one) to do this course, yet, at the end of a day spent hooping and flipping the curd and bleeding the whey, you're left holding a tasty ricotta, camembert and feta."I had no idea how cheese was made before I did this course," says local viticulturalist Susie Angus, who described the course as the ultimate marriage of art and science.The day starts at a sensible 11am as the class of 10 ties on white aprons and dons kerchiefs for an instantaneous eastern European look that takes you one step further away from day-to-day reality.Despite the earlier sentiments that you don't need to be Einstein to get hold of cheesemaking, there's quite a lot of talk about the chemical processes that are taking place, but it's so simple, even I can understand it. To make paneer, the blocks of tofu-like curd used in Indian cooking, boil milk, add lemon juice, stir, cool, squish into blocks. How hard is that?Ricotta is even easier. To paraphrase James Joyce, cheese is but the corpse of milk, ricotta being the left-over whey drained away from the curd. And better still, unlike other cheeses, it can be eaten fresh. Given my modus operandi of short-term reward, it suits me to the ground, and the ricotta, which is silky sweet, is pressed into soft white cakes and dressed with fresh raspberries, blackberries and strawberries - a total taste sensation.This being a civilised course, lunch is called for, where everyone gets to try wines from the region, many from "orphan" winemakers who have no cellar door. Sometimes the winemakers themselves pop in for a chat. The wines are matched with cheeses from some of South Australia's great makers, including Udder Delights and the Alexandrina Cheese Company, just down the road.In between, everyone pops up to check on their wannabe feta and camemberts, which sound complicated, but in essence are just pots of pasteurised milk, warmed to different temperatures with cultures added, then left to brew. Later, the curds are cut according to the type of cheese being made, small for hard cheese, into larger chunks for softer cheese, and then "hooped" into moulds.Now it's time to let your little ones grow, overseen by babysitter Mark. After all that hard work, the cheeses are rested overnight, and in the morning, Mark brines them before putting them to bed. In a couple of weeks' time, everyone's email accounts are blessed with "postcards" from their little bundles of joy. The camemberts say hello from their "fluffy bunny" stage, where soft white mould starts to creep over the skin, and later, as they reach maturity, before you pick them up for an evening's gloating. Then, like Zeus, you get to eat your own creation.It's as addictive as it is creative. To date, four graduates have thrown in their day jobs to move into the cheesemaking industry, while many more students continue to make cheese at home using the DIY kits sold at the Blessed Cheese."Cheese is the new wine. It's extremely touchy-feely, making your own cheese," says Mark, who is one of the few people I have met who can wax poetic about the beauty of a chemical process, such as about the vision of salt and vinegar being added to whey. "The best way to describe the sight is like a roiling almond blossom whose petals are billowing open." Strangely, I get his drift.Sounds poetic, tastes divine.TRIP NOTES? The Blessed Cheese cheesemaking course costs $120 a person. Phone (08) 8323 7958, see www.blessedcheese .com.au.? Afterwards, take a tour through the McLaren Vale. Pick up your cheese platter and map at the Blessed Cheese and stop at a series of cellar doors where wines are matched with the cheeses in your picnic box.? The Blessed Cheese does two-day packages combining the cheesemaking class, cheese-and-wine tour and accommodation.
© 2006 Sun Herald
