Humboldt fog cheese3/2/2023 ![]() Overwhelmed with more goat’s milk than her human companions could or were willing to drink, she began experimenting in her kitchen and learned to make fresh cheese, or chèvre.Ī friend who was opening a restaurant told Keehn, now a divorced mother of four, “If you start a cheese factory, I’ll buy your cheese.” And in 1983 – without any official training, apprenticeship or business experience beyond selling her goats’ breed stock – Keehn launched Cypress Grove. For years, Keehn and her family lived as self-sufficiently as possible. Mary Keehn acquired her first goats in 1970, wanting to feed fresh goat’s milk to her first daughter, whom she was herself then weaning. ![]() Cypress Grove’s heroine embodies characteristics that could describe the American artisan cheese industry as a whole: scrappy, innovative and unapologetically indebted to European tastes and know-how - condensing themes that emerged through anthropological research I conducted across the United States for my book, “ The Life of Cheese.” ![]() ![]() The California dream is about moving west (or, as in Keehn’s case, farther north, to Humboldt County from Sonoma) to start anew, seeking not so much to get rich quick as to envision and inhabit a new identity. Not merely an entrepreneurial success story, it is a narrative of self-reinvention. The story of Keehn’s Cypress Grove Cheese is a quintessential telling of the California dream. Indeed, a wheel of Humboldt Fog melds elements of two iconic French cheeses, with a Morbier-like ribbon of ash running through chalky paste more reminiscent of a soft-ripened Valançay. In Keehn’s telling, the revelation occurred on a transatlantic flight home from France, where she’d gone in 1992 as a young cheese-maker looking for new inspiration by tasting traditional French cheeses and visiting their makers. And then she set out to realize her vision - in the process, she helped launch a late-20th-century American renaissance in artisan cheese-making.īut the dream didn’t come from nowhere. She fell asleep on an airplane and awoke with a vivid picture in her mind of how the cheese looked. The idea for Humboldt Fog goat’s milk cheese first came to Mary Keehn in a dream. After ten to fourteen days, serve with a light red wine such as Pinot Noir or Rosé.Heather Paxson is professor of anthropology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology It will continue ripening in your refrigerator. The shelf-life (once bought from the store) is about four weeks. Serve with honeycomb, pears and a crisp white wine ( Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio are good selections for this Humboldt cheese.) It also pairs well with wild mushrooms and other earthy flavors. Ripened cheeses need to breath and wax paper rather than plastic wrap allows this to happen. A bloomy mold-ripened rind covers the gooey insides.įor best results, use wax paper to store. It has a lemony and citrus-like tang when it is young. A horizontal layer of edible vegetable ash is lined through its center. The cheese itself is aged ten days and turned daily. Fifty-one percent is owned by a co-op of small farmers and dairy operators. The Swiss company Emmi purchased her company. ![]() As the company grew, she sold goats to nearby farmers, buying the milk back.Īfter many acquisition offers, she finally settled on one in 2010. At that point she began experimenting with cheesemaking and began a company. A few years later she had many more goats and too much milk. After raising two goats, she developed a passion for high Alpine (of or relating to high mountains) goats. In the 1970’s Mary Keehn wanted healthy milk for her children. It echoes the place where it is made – the northwest coast of California in Humboldt County, a place where the fog rolls in from the bay. The center of the cheese feels like a cloud is melting in your mouth. A remarkable goat cheese that won first place from the American Cheese Society is Humboldt Fog, produced by Cypress Grove. ![]()
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