干酪制造者

Veronica Pedraza’02 originally chose her major to get in to law school, but today her rhetoric 和 discourse background helps her talk about the award-winning, 她生产的农场奶酪. 更重要的是, her very existence on a central New York farm is helping to preserve rural l和和 a vanishing way of life.

Sipping italian white wine 和 eating sheep’s milk cheese with Veronica Pedraza’02 raises the question: Why isn’t everybody in the 贝洛伊特 family a farmstead cheesemaker? 就像很多来伯洛伊特的人一样, 她解压, 从大城市到小镇, 开始寻找自我.

“最初, 我来自迈阿密, 佛罗里达, 当我来到伯洛伊特时，我受到了很大的文化冲击,佩德拉萨说. “我从未见过玉米地，从未见过雪. My father’s from Cuba 和 70 percent of the population of Miami is Spanish speaking. 在伯洛伊特，我感觉自己是在真正的美国. 我吃了很多奶酪. 我从没见过这么多红肉和全脂牛奶. 我花了一段时间才适应贝洛伊特, 但我很清楚我想去那里上学.”

After a few detours post-贝洛伊特, 她解压 even 更多的, to a farm. 伯洛伊特大学的文科经历照亮了这条路.

“我和大多数情人一样, there’s a kind of sense of social justice that people pursue with their education, 我认为农村经济问题往往从未得到解决,她说。. “The way I look at cheese is that this is a way to keep this farm from being developed into condos.”

That said, none of the courses she took at 贝洛伊特 prepared her for making cheese.

“我没有上过科学课, 和 I went to 贝洛伊特 primarily because I realized I didn’t have to take math to graduate, 现在我一直在用数学. The problem was, no one ever explained to me that I could use any of that stuff to make cheese. 我为什么要知道可滴定的酸度?”

维罗妮卡佩德拉泽02

She majored in rhetoric 和 discourse 和 sociology to prepare for law school. 她有信心, 分析性的思维, 以及成为一名好律师的热情, 和, 幸运的是, 就像一个优秀的文科毕业生, 她是无所畏惧的, 所以她尝试了一些完全不同的东西.

Like many 贝洛伊特 experiences, it wasn’t just class work that made a difference. 佩德拉萨靠在贝洛伊特酒店做饭来支付大学学费. She took advantage of an exchange program, taking her last semester in Morocco. She was fascinated by restaurants where they killed the chicken after you ordered. She decided to bring that experience to America 和 make food “fresh, real, 和 delicious.”

Five years in the restaurant kitchens of Chicago didn’t offer any chance to liberate food. 所以在2007年, 在回佛罗里达的路上, she stopped at Sweet Grass Dairy in Georgia 和 got a job as an apprentice cheesemaker. Two years later, she became a creamery manager at Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont. She’s been operations manager at Meadowood Farm in New York state since 2012, 被他们的东弗里西亚羊群吸引.

Pedraza knew the market was saturated with artisan cow’s milk cheese, 羊奶奶酪有更多的挑战和更多的奖励, 更多的蛋白质和脂肪. “更多的蛋白质意味着更多的奶酪，更少的牛奶，”她解释说. “更多的脂肪意味着更多的味道.”

草地农场Veronica Pedraza The sheep graze on a 225-acre spread east of Cazenovia Lake in central New York just southeast of Syracuse. Lake-effect snow buffs know that can mean 20 feet of snow in the winter. The impulse to save the farm from developers came from two Washington, D.C., investors who restored the farm buildings 和 brought livestock 和 the people to h和le them. Pedraza’s sheep’s milk cheese brings in the money to pay the salaries 和 property tax.

“我负责市场营销和销售. I do all the administrative things 和 human resources,她解释道 with a laugh. 这个农场有七个雇员. 佩德拉萨是一个坚强、负责任的女人，但她不给羊挤奶. She collaborates with those who do 和 with the farm manager in charge of the pasture.

“牧场质量最终会影响牛奶质量,她解释道, 因为牧场是羊的食物来源. “我希望我的奶酪尝起来像来自这个农场.”

Ax blade scars in rude planks 和 joists greet Pedraza every morning as she goes out the back of the farm house 和 walks past the murmuring sheep. She has a few moments to savor the dew 和 then she’s in a white paint 和 stainless steel world with blue sanitizing pellets on the floor. 她打趣道:“FDA检查员喜欢看到这一点。.

草地农场Veronica Pedraza 现在是节奏和正直的时候了. Music blasts as Pedraza’s team of three cleans all surfaces 和 cleans some 更多的. 清洁是必须的. When capturing the taste of the pasture, the dirt 和 manure can’t hitch a ride. 奶酪必须是纯的，即使它是由细菌产生的.

In the history of cheese, America is famous for industrial scale production. American farmstead cheesemakers go back to the Old World for culture. Her sheep’s milk is “direct vat inoculated” with bacteria from France, 她解释说，这是一个细菌的缩影, 酵母, 和霉菌. “这就像他们生活的星球，”她说. “Cheeses are living things that breathe 和 they need oxygen to ripen.”

奶酪制作是一门古老的艺术，但今天科学有所帮助.

“牛奶总是在变，”佩德拉萨解释说. “You are basically trying to make the same product, but the major ingredient is never the same. We have instrumentation that lets us know in real time what our fat 和 what our protein is. The challenge is to keep doing it over 和 over 和 make a consistently good cheese.”

音乐也是必须的. “It helps with the tempo because a lot of cheese making is being in a rhythm, 拥有流动, 流动的处于流动状态的,她说。. One morning that motion ended with 320 molds of cheese made from 90 gallons of sheep’s milk. 多亏了她桌上pH计旁边的电子笔记本, she knows all she scientifically can about that cheese 和 every other batch she made before.

The flow doesn’t stop in the refrigerated room where the cheese ages, but the science does. 是她在伯洛伊特主修专业的时候了.

“我认为所有的营销都是花言巧语，”她说. 佩德拉萨用当地历史人物的名字为她的奶酪命名, 然后找到合适的语言来表达, 有时还会展望奶酪的未来:“健壮。, 多肉的, 和 built for the pint;” sometimes inspired by the pH meter 和 the music of James Brown: “lactic 和 funky, 带着一点谷仓的味道.”

她没有把剩下的工作留给美食经销商. 她每个月去一次纽约, 波士顿, 费城, 或者芝加哥，在那里她畅所欲言，分享她的奶酪.

她每年都要和其他奶酪匠一起挤一次. 今年, Meadowood’s Ledyard cheese won a first place prize in the category of “American Originals” sheep’s milk cheese at the American Cheese Society competition 和 convention—the farm’s first blue ribbon. 去年在同一个大会上, 专家评判1,两轮779个奶酪, 美学和技术, 盲测. Pedraza’s Rippleton sheep’s milk cheese with that taste of the barnyard won a second place ribbon in a farmstead cheese category. 她认识获得第三名绶带的人, 缅因州温特希尔农场的奶酪制作师, 但大学毕业后就没见过他了, 史蒂夫汉堡的01.

接下来，伯洛伊特将举办一场关于奶酪制作的研讨会?