Biddy Fraser-Davies
I first met Biddy Fraser-Davies back in 2005 when I wrote about her for Cuisine magazine and produced a farming feature for Radio New Zealand. In those days she’d just started producing cheese on her farmlet and no one had heard of her or her much-loved cow, Gwendolyn. She was a real find, great talent with a no-nonsense approach and a cheerful eccentricity that fit her as comfortably as her bright pink crocs. Since then she’s starred on Country Calendar and been written up by numerous magazines and newspapers. Biddy and her milking cows – currently Sally and Molly – are the poster girls of the artisan cheese movement, and, as befits their celebrity status, they’ve just released their own DVD.
It’s called Farmhouse Cheese Making: an instructional DVD showing how Cwmglyn Farmhouse Cheese is produced. It features Molly the cow on the cover and stars Biddy the dairymaid in apron and boots. A self-taught cheesemaker, she begins by admitting it took her a full year of trial and error to achieve the consistently good cheeses she sells today. The DVD aims to help others short track the learning process. Together with the comprehensive cow-to-cheese manual, which can be found on the Cwmglyn Farm website, it’s an excellent introduction to the cheesemaker’s craft.
Cwmglyn Farmhouse Cheese
I learned how to make cheese by attending a class run by Katherine Mowbray. Her courses are very good and I often refer to her book but what I like about Biddy’s DVD is that you can re-run it again and again. So if you can’t recall how firm the curds should be before you cut them, you can replay the episode.
Fresh Curds
Biddy demonstrates the semi hard, naturally rinded farmhouse cheese she produces herself, but the process is similar for most of the cheeses you’re likely to make. Factors like the type of milk, the culture and temperature all play their part but once you have the feel for the basic technique you can adapt it to recipes for soft white-moulded brie or pungent washed-rind cheeses like Pont l’Eveque.
I’m not sure if Biddy has ever been a teacher but I reckon she’s a natural. She manages to cover the technical stuff while making the whole process look as easy as it is – once you know the pitfalls. Listen carefully when she says: “Now this is important…” and you’ll avoid the mistakes that most of us make.
Homemade Cheese Press
Her own small cheesery is purpose-built and licensed for commercial production but much of her equipment has been adapted from every-day utensils – coffee filters are used to strain the milk and a perforated pasta cooker stands in for a cheese mould. Tips like this demystify the process and make the point that cheese making doesn’t have to be expensive.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned – and Biddy emphasises this again and again – it’s that you really do have to be super hygienic. The last lot of cheese Dan and I made got infected with blue mould and I’ve had nasty pink spots ruin the virginal bloom of an otherwise perfect goat camembert. But most of the time we get it right and sometimes our little cheeses are good enough to photograph.
Farmhouse Cheese Making: An Instructional DVD costs $40 plus postage. Details on Cwmglyn Farm website: www.modelrailway.co.nz
Thank you Anna for your kind words. Great excitement here at Cwmglyn Farm as we have just taken possession of a new cow. Her pedigree name is Aura Disney, but we are allowed to call her Dizzy….. We will start milking her tomorrow morning and her first cheese should be available for tasting around the end of January 2012…. As the Mainline commercial states “Good cheese takes time”!
Dizzy, like my other cows, is a Jersey and is a lovely ash-brown colour with a beautiful udder (very important consideration for a cheese-making cow!) quiet and stroke-able and halter trained.
with a name like that she should be a blonde!
Hi Biddy. I have been reading your article in the NZ Lifestyle Block magazine. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading about your journey through cheesemaking. When do you run your classes, I would be interested in attending.
Thank you Lulu for your kind remarks. I am afraid my small licensed cheese room is too small to use as a teaching venue, but I am more than happy to talk to you about cheesemaking and any attendant problems you may have. we are open most days and at the weekends and on public holidays, the model trains are running too – we are just a couple of kilometers away from Pukeha Mount Bruce Wildlife centre about a 25 minute drive north of Masterton. We have a big brown tourist sign on Highway just north of Anzac Bridge pointing out the turn-off (South Road No.2) and Morgans Road is first turn on left. We are 300 metres or so on the right. Come in and taste my cheese. Patsy had her latest calf 16th April, a bull calf called Kevin, and Isobel had her first calf, a heifer called Katie on 29th April. Both Isobel and Patsy are milking well and we look forward to tasting their new season’s cheese in July.
Biddy Fraser-Davies,
Cwmglyn Farmhouse Cheese