Every Good Cheese Tells a Story a Tasty Afternoon on the Cheese Trail in Ontario’S Dairy Capital ‘If You Don’T Have the Touch, You Can’T Make Good Cheese’
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FEATURE F Photo • GUNN’S hILL ChEESE Every good cheese tells a story A tasty afternoon on The Cheese Trail in Ontario’s Dairy Capital ‘If you don’t have the touch, you can’t make good cheese’ BY DAWN MATHESON found her in the back porch with a glass It’s clear this taste was nothing like the of a dark liquid in one hand and a plate plasticky-goo on the pizzas warming in the ne Friday night last June, our topped with a delicate mound of soft oven. downtown Guelph home was full velvety heaven in the other. She said it was My face melted. “Orgasmic,” I told Jen as I of more than a dozen Grade 7s just the time-out I needed. washed it down with the dark brown stout. shooting Nerf guns and blaring “Close your eyes, open your mouth,” Jen Eating a piece of cheese with Jen is always tunes, chaos loud enough that the ordered. “Smell, savour.” like a seduction. Owhole street must have overheard. All it took was one dewy dollop of buttery, “I’m in France, eating Brie on the Loire.” “Mom! Neighbour’s here,” my son yelled creamy cheesy bliss on the tongue for the “No, you’re not,” said Jen, as she launched into the kitchen where I was loading frozen Eminem thumping in the living room to into the story behind the cheese that just pizza into the oven. silence; the waft of the 13 pairs of stinky slipped down my throat. It was Jen Whyte from over the fence. I running shoes in the porch to vapourize. “In fact, you are in Ontario, in Oxford JULY I AUGUST 2017 GRAND 107 The last famous marketing ploy for the going to be paid back to your milk. If you be flavour if aged over two years. laughing. “It was minus 38. No way!” In a dairy industry in the region was in 1883 good to them, they’re going to be good to you,” “It’s a myth that Gouda is bland. You’re few months, encouraged by a fellow Dutch when the local dairy farmers got together Adam says in a thick genial Dutch accent. just eating the wrong Gouda.” immigrant farmer, they relocated to Oxford to produce a 7,300-pound wheel of cheese After years of milking, van Bergeijk It’s true, says van Bergeijk. Aging is key, County. that toured to the New York World Fair and wanted to try his hand at cheese. In but really cheesemaking is all in the hands. For the next 15 years, Adam and his then to Great Britain. Holland, that meant Gouda, the country’s “I have to feel the curd between my family established themselves in milk pro- In the 1800s, Oxford County was one of signature cheese and one of the oldest still fingers. I can tell how ready it is in the duction, but the Gouda dream never died. the most important centres in Canada with made today; the earliest recording is in process. A good cheesemaker has to have “It took us a while to get licences and 98 cheese factories. On the tour today you 1184. Nearly 800 years later, in 1981, van a sense of touch,” says van Bergeijk, whose permits together… plus, really, you need six can see a period replica cheese factory at Bergeijk and his wife, Hannie, enrolled hands massage imaginary curd as he speaks. figures to be in this business.” the Ingersoll Cheese Museum. in Cheesemaking School in the town of “If you don’t have the touch, you can’t Today, both van Bergeijk sons farm: one at Plans were laid that Friday night in my Gouda where Adam went on to become an make good cheese.” Mountainoak with Adam; and the other on back porch for an escape to cheese heaven. instructor. Soon enough, the van Bergeijks’ sons a dairy farm down the road. Their daughter I mapped out our route and Jen hand- Gouda today refers more to a general style wanted to farm for themselves, “but married a neighbouring dairy farmer. picked the cheesemakers while the ’tweens of cheesemaking rather than to a specific Holland is really, really crowded,” says The first Gouda, made from same-day, Nerf-gun demolished my living room and kind of cheese, the taste varying greatly Adam. There just wasn’t enough land, and, non-homogenized and unpasteurized milk, PhotoGrAPhy • dAwN MAthESoN the pizza burned in the oven. based on age. My neighbour, Jen, explains: too many cheesemakers. was ready for the public in July of 2012. Mountainoak Cheese But I didn’t care. Soon I’d be devouring lots A young Gouda can be described as buttery In the back of his mind, he had hoped to Today they make 16 varieties, from a soft and lots of luscious cheese produced virtually with a slight mild nutty flavour, while the one day bring the tradition of fine Gouda to and crunchy Aged Cumin Gouda to a zesty County, eating cheesemaker Shep Yssel- just down the road. more mature cheese has a complex and Canada. Wild Nettle. stein’s Brigid’s Brie from Gunn’s Hill.” subtle sharpness with hints of butterscotch In 1996, at 45, he bought a farm in Their aging room holds about 3,000 My neighbour is a cheese snob; there is that can take on an almost whisky-like Alberta. “It was December,” Adam said, wheels, each turned by hand every other day. no nicer way to say it. And her life mission MoUNtAINoAK ChEESE is to make snobs of us all. Jen has booths 3165 Huron Rd., New Hamburg at the Guelph Farmers’ Market year round mountainoakcheese.com and in Rockwood at the seasonal market, en suggests we go Old World traditional selling artisanal cheese – cheese produced Jfirst and visit a true family farm, one in small batches by hand, using traditional where the whole process happens in-house: craftsmanship. By night, Jen curates cheese, the farmer grows the feed that feeds the beer and chocolate tasting events with her cows, and milks the milk that makes the company, Taste of Craft, run with local beer cheese. That means Mountainoak cheese connoisseur, Karyn Boscariol. isn’t only artisanal but also farmstead, Jen’s timing in the market couldn’t be where the only milk used for cheese more perfect: Canadians are craving local production is from animals raised by the specialty cheeses over the giant producers where Bright Cheese still produces cheddar maker. of the manufactured processed brands. on the same land where their cows were “Farming is not an occupation. It is a way Don’t get me wrong: Kraft Dinner still milked 142 years ago. In 2015, four Oxford of living,” says Adam van Bergeijk, as he reigns supreme with my kids. It is pretty County artisanal cheesemakers were welcomes us to his handsome 200-acre well Canada’s national dish: James Lewis nominated for the Canadian Cheese Grand dairy farm. Kraft grew up on a dairy farm in Ontario. Prix, and three came home with an award. For van Bergeijk, who has farmed most of Until about a decade ago — other than “It isn’t just the amazing quality and his life since he took over the family dairy cheddar, which was once Canada’s second range of flavours in artisanal cheese that farm back in Holland in 1976, it’s always largest export — the great variety of artisan consumers are looking for, they want the been about the cow. cheeses you found in the cheese shops were stories behind the food: where it comes “I love my Holstein. They are really sweet from Quebec or imported from Europe. from, who makes it and how,” Jen says. animals. When I walk in the herd, they Today, there are 40-some artisanal Hence, Oxford Tourism’s smart marketing come up to me. They know me and I know producers throughout Ontario — the con- move with The Cheese Trail in Ontario’s them by name,” says van Bergeijk, who centration sprouting up in Oxford County, Dairy Capital – tourismoxford.ca/cheese- oversees a herd of 200. about 30 kilometres southwest of Kitchener, trail – launched in 2015. “Everything that you do with the cows is 108 GRAND JULY I AUGUST 2017 JULY I AUGUST 2017 GRAND 109 listed on the Cheese Trail. This is Ruth an easy business, especially the politics of markets across Ontario per week, talking in balsam ash, and Bliss, a spring sheep’s Klahsen’s Monforte on Wellington eatery in food production.” and tasting cheese. If you work for me, you cheese rolled in tarragon that tastes of neighbouring Perth County in downtown In 2004, Klahsen mortgaged everything sell at markets.” liquorice and lavender in a creamy velvet. Stratford. she owned to start Monforte. She called it That’s how she rolls. Klahsen doesn’t rely Much like her business style, her food is “She is known for doing things differ- her midlife crisis. She couldn’t understand on marketing, doesn’t use any distributors, all about relationships — each cheese has ently,” says Jen, “she is a force of nature. how a province with so much agriculture only sells direct. She’s not worried about its pairing — ours are honey, a mustard Anyhow, her cheese can’t be missed.” produced no artisanal cheese. Right before not being on a cheese trail. Heck, the and, of course, beer, which Jen calls “the The products from her dairy (a processing she was set to launch, she says she and her restaurant we met at didn’t have a sign for perfect cheese beverage.” plant in town), the first operating artisanal cheesemaker and business partner had a the first six months, yet still drew a crowd We follow up with the required cheese cheese company to launch in Ontario, are falling out.