Root + Bone: The mysteries of raw milk
Raw milk: to some it conjures imagery of buttery, foamy nectar, flooded with vitamins and antibodies, free from chemical intervention. To some old schoolers it’s more the sort of thing a man in an anorak might sell you out of the back of a van at a Newton Abbot car boot sale.
It’s attracted controversy in the past, but it’s now widely accepted that raw milk is safe to drink when produced in clean, safe conditions – that’s aside from claims of its allergy-curing properties. The logical next step is cheese made with raw milk; the connoisseur’s dinner party surprise, raw milk cheese is considered to boast bacteria-enhanced flavours the uninitiated can only dream of. Are you ready take the plunge?
Anyone with a penchant for smelly cheese will know just how that waft of sweaty bacteria gets into your head, burning itself forever into your taste buds. You start your journey with a gentle goat’s cheese, graduate to an earthy Brie, but sooner or later, nothing but the powerful funk of an aged Camembert will do. Step up raw milk – in cheese form, it’s said to open portals of pungency that leave pasteurised fromage looking pale and uninteresting.
First and foremost, it’s important to distinguish between cheese made from raw milk and raw milk itself. Pasteurisation was introduced to kill bacteria before most people had access to refrigerators; it was a huge step forward towards enabling the safe consumption of milk but the landscape has evolved since then. Today it’s legal for raw milk to be sold by UK farmers, and it’s recognised that raw milk and raw milk cheese made from a single quality milk source is completely traceable and hygienic.
Raw milk cheese makers are a disciplined lot – with more regulation surrounding their industry, fastidiousness and careful craftsmanship are paramount. Artisan and small scale operations are capable of overseeing the quality, and therefore safety, of their products from start to finish. But why bother? More red tape means more expense, smaller batches and a slower process. The answer lies in the deliciously deep flavour profiles that makers and consumers alike boast of.
Serious Eats writer and US-based cheesemonger Benjamin Roberts explains that raw cheese milk is cheese in its purest form. “Pasteurisation kills the bacteria that is responsible for infusing cheese with natural, spunky, exciting flavors that can't be simply replicated. Heating milk to high temperatures changes its composition, for better or for worse. You can count me in the group that believes raw milk cheeses really do have deeper flavor profiles that ought to be appreciated.”
Blackwoods Cheese Company was formed by Dave Holton, Tim Jarvis and Rory Holwerda in Brockley, South East London in 2013. Their cheeses are made by hand, using as little intervention as possible. Regulars to South London markets will be familiar with ‘Graceburn’, a stunning Persian-style feta, while those across the capital have been getting their salty feta fix from selected stockists around the city. The boys also produce cheeses called ‘Edmund Tew’ and ‘William Heaps’, named after British convicts who were transported to Australia in the 1800s for stealing cheese.
Until now, the raw, unpasteurised milk has been brought by road from the Common Work Organic farm in Kent, just over an hour’s drive from Brockley. It’s a road trip the boys have become very familiar with, as the milk needs to be picked up fresh, several times a week. Their herd consists of Friesian x Holsteins, with Swedish Red and Montbeliardes bred in. The Swedish Reds help to increase the butter fat concentration in the milk, while the milk from the Montbeliards has a high level of protein and is famed for its cheese making qualities.
But all this is about to change as Blackwoods make a strategic move and shift their production to the farm. This will have many advantages: first, that the milk will be even fresher. Secondly, they’ll have more space to make more great cheese. Thirdly, they can work collaboratively with their dairy farmer, and take greater control over production. Finally, from an environmental perspective, it’s much more efficient to transport the finished product, than transporting raw milk. Win-win. Expect to see more great cheese at more stockists in future.
Find out more at:
www.blackwoodscheesecompany.co.uk
@blackwoodsco
