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Restaurant Daily News Marketplace C Sunday, May 22, 2016 stead cheese producers together into the same room, and it won't be long before your imagination begins to fill in the cas- socks and candles as they begin explicat- ing in unison their creed that their cheese is the product of their pastures. Behind their cheese is milk, they will tell you – frequently in so many words – and behind the milk is an animal and behind that animal is, well, okay, let's call it fer- tilizer. But that nourishes the grasses and the forbs in the fields that are strength- ened by the minerals in the soil and the water. It's the calcium in the limestone soils that makes the calcium in milk that makes the calcium for strong bones in the person who eats the cheese. The cheese- makers' role here is to be good stewards of all of it, both the visible and the invis- ible, and to do their best to make a cheese that's a true expression of the entire land- scape in which they live. "Not all milks are created equal," Hatch said. "Everything we do – breeds of cows, when they calve, what they eat, is geared to the cheese.... We only serve one mas- ter." Hatch came to work at Uplands Cheese in 2007 after studying dairy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an apprenticeship with Master Cheesemaker Gary Grussen. He went to work for Uplands founders Mike Gingrich and Dan Patenaude, who'd bought the farm in 1994 with the idea of joining the sepa- rate dairy herds they'd been running as neighbors and managing them in a sea- sonal pasture-based system. In 2000, Gingrich and Patenaude had begun work- ing with local cheesemakers to develop their own version of the ancient Alpine- style cheeses, and Pleasant Ridge Reserve was born. Hatch showed up and started begging for a creamery job, and eventually, Gingrich and Patenaude caved and hired him. In 2010, Mericka showed up to apprentice with the herd. The two bought the property from Gingrich and Patenaude two years ago. "They grew slowly and kept doing things that I consider the right way," Hatch said. "Our intention is to not change the way we do things.... We still don't keep up with demand, so there's no incentive to compromise." The Uplands Cheese herd lives in the pasture year-round, grazing its way through a succession of small pastures divided by electric fencing. They're moved from one pasture to another every 12 hours, so that they're always eating grass that's growing at full vitality, nei- ther grazed too short to recover quickly nor left to grow until its exhausted and its protein content has begun to decline. In the winter, they're fed hay raised on the farm. In the spring, when the grass begins to grow again, they're provided with less and less hay until the fields are able to support all of their nutritional needs once again. The cows are all dry during the win- ter. Calves are born outside in the fields, all at about the same time in April. "It's better for the cows. It's better for the land, and it's better for the farmer," Hatch said. It is, however, a farming method that produces less milk than con- ventional methods in which dairy cows are housed in barns, are bred for the sole purpose of maximizing their productivi- ty and calve year-round to provide a con- sistent milk supply. The Uplands cows produce about half the milk of a modern Holstein. "It's hard to make a run at it selling commodity milk. But when you add value to it with the cheese, you can make it work," Hatch said. "This was not a nouveau concept." Once the grass has come in, and the cows have been eating it exclusively for a few days, Hatch starts making Pleasant Ridge Reserve around the first of May. The cows' evening milk is held in a tank overnight, and the morning milk comes in on top of it, hot from the cow. When the last cow is milked in the morning, the farmer taps on the creamery window, the cheesemaker turns the tap to empty the tank, and the milk flows into the cheese vat at 70 degrees. There are a few aspects that matter in the vat: fat content, microbial content, moisture and pH, Hatch said. "We think about what we're doing in here is just nailing it technically," Hatch said. "The magic is latent in the milk itself. It comes to expression in the caves." After the cheese has coagulated, the curd is pressed under the whey for about an hour, and the whey is then drained off. The curd is cut by hand, stuffed into forms and stacked into a press overnight. "The first guy in the next morning pulls the cheese out of the forms, dry salts it and packs it away, cleans the forms and gets ready to do it all again," Hatch said. "Then there's plenty of work to do in the caves.... The cheese is brushed by hand every day for the first three weeks of its life. It's a lot of work. That's one reason why cheese like ours is expensive... because we have to touch it a lot." As the wheels cure, they move through a succession of aging rooms where temperature and humidity are tai- lored to their changing needs. This is the process called affinage, the centuries-old and extremely labor-intensive process of caring for the cheese as it ages. While it costs about 3 cents a pound to age the average Wisconsin cheese, it costs Hatch 28 to 32 cents a pound to age Pleasant Ridge over the year or two it'll spend in his caves. "The old-fashioned way of doing things is now fancy," Hatch said. "You just can't fake the flavor develop- ment you get.... we don't do it this way out of nostalgia. If there was an easier way to do it, we would." Cheesemaking continues until the dog days of summer, when there's no rain, the weather gets hot, and the cows' milk productivity drops as they lounge around in the shade all day, avoiding sunburn and trying not to break a sweat. When the rains come again in mid- August, the weather cools, the cows go back to work, and cheesemaking begins again for a few weeks. When the pastures turn brown in September, the cows start eating hay. They're still producing milk, but it's milk that lacks the complex flavors that develop when the cows are eating a diet of mixed grasses, so Hatch won't use it to make his Pleasant Ridge Reserve. The fall milk does have a higher butterfat content, though, so what it lacks it complexity, it gains in gravitas. Hatch thought about that and decided a couple of years ago follow the example of the Swiss dairy farmers who make soft mold-ripened cheeses with their fall milk and try his hand at a cheese that he named Rush Creek Reserve. "Pleasant Ridge is made in the fields, and Rush Creek is made in the caves," Hatch said. Fermentation by the molds and yeasts that naturally feast on milk sugars develops flavors not present in the fresh raw milk as the spruce bark-wrapped cheese ages for just a few weeks. The flavors develop and deepen and the cheese's texture mellows until the microbes have exhausted their food sup- ply. That's when the soft cheese is at its peak. A little later, and the beneficial microbes begin to die off, which creates off flavors and odors and a decline in the cheese's texture. Rush Creek Reserve is aged just longer than the 60 days required by Food and Drug Administration regulations for raw milk cheeses and then released to the market. It is one of the most sought- after cheeses in the American specialty cheese world, and because it's only made in winter and doesn't last, it is necessar- ily extremely seasonal, and in the early Wisconsin spring, what Hatch had on hand to offer the food editors was a taste of the last of his two-year-old Pleasant Ridge Reserve, which is as old as the cheese gets, and samples of his one-year- old Pleasant Ridge Reserve that's going to market now. "Everything we make in one calendar year is sold the next calen- dar year," Hatch said. "The name of the game is to sell each wheel at its peak.... For me, it's the most fun part of the work. It's like watching your kids grow up." PLANT BASED PROTEINS PROJECTED TO REMAIN POPULAR By Greg Gonzales Ask vegans where they get their protein these days, and eyes are sure to roll. Consumers, especially millennials, are adding more plant-based proteins to their diet than ever before. Their reasons vary, but tend to include health, sustainability and ethical concerns. "At the current trends of food consumption and environmental changes, food security and food sustainabil- ity are on a collision course," says a 2014 American Society for Nutrition study. "Policies in favor of the global adoption of plant-based diets will simultaneously opti- mize the food supply, health, environmental and social justice outcomes for the world's population." Whatever their reasons for incorporating more plant-based protein into their diets, plant-based alternatives are one of the biggest trends this year. According to Mintel's 2016 Global Food and Drink Trends report, the increase in novel protein sources appeals to a wider variety of consumers, and indicates that the "alternative" marketplace might take over the mainstream animal-based market. As early as 2013, Mintel reported that more than one-third of U.S. consumers had pur- chased a meat alternative such as Tofurky or Beyond Meat. Seventy percent of Millennials consume meat alternatives a few times a week, with one-third of them consuming a meat alternative daily. Some of them are switching to plant- based diets, or not eating as much meat, as a health choice. Recent research from the World Health Organization and other insti- tutions have linked processed meat and red meat consumption to colon cancer, and other forms of cancer. Meat is also rich in saturated fats and sodium, which is bad for heart health when it dominates the diet. According to a Harvard study, replacing these fat-rich meats with foods rich in polyunsaturated fats, like nuts or seeds, reduced heart disease risk by 19 percent. Another study, from Imperial College London, showed that reduced meat con- sumption also helps prevent obesity in the long term. In addition, a look at the nutrition facts on meat versus peas or beans shows that the latter can provide more fiber, pro- tein, vitamins and minerals without the extra fat the former adds. Reducing meat intake and substituting vegetables provides all the daily dietary requirements. Consumers have also reduced their meat intake in the name of animal welfare and environment. For example, more than 8 billion chickens were slaughtered for meat in 2014, most of them living in cages too small to move around in. Some argue that this kind of pain and suffering of the ani- mals is enough for them to make the switch, though consumers might also point to envi- ronmental factors as well. Chef and Restauranteur Dan Barber writes in his book, "The Third Plate," that "Fixtures of agribusiness such as five-thousand-acre grain monocultures and bloated animal feedlots are no more the future of farming than eighteenth-century factories billowing black smoke are the future of manufactur- ing." Barber argues in interviews, books and Ted Talks that agriculture, cooking and nature go hand-in-hand, that foods pro- duced along with the local ecosystem are sustainable and even taste better. Reasons for eating more plants and less meat aside, available alternatives to animal proteins run the gamut of protein sources. Quorn's patties and strips get their protein from a fungus to mimic the taste and texture of chicken, while Gardein's formulation for chicken, fish and burgers do the same using vital wheat gluten. Beyond Meat's products use a variety of sources, including pea pro- tein, to mimic meats like chicken and beef. Vegans can still enjoy their morning eggs with Follow Your Heart's VeganEgg, a completely vegan egg product made from algae that cooks up in a pan just like the real thing. Bean burgers, mushrooms, jackfruit, tempeh, tofu, seitan and texturized veg- etable protein are just some of the other ways consumers are pushing meat proteins further off their plates. From Paleo to vegan and gluten-free, there's something for every individual. "People need the information so they can make their choice, even in the space of non-meat proteins," said Minh Tsai, Founder and CEO of Hodo Soy. "Even now, there's a lot of choices. With informa- tion, both in terms of what it tastes like and what the ingredients are, customers will have that info and make the right choice when it comes to taste, and when it comes to health."