Making Cheese in Europe

Most of my knowledge of the Basque Country has been through working in the artisan cheese industry. I knew that the Basque is a region that encompasses Northern Spain and Southern France, they have lots of sheep, and they speak their own language. I was in the Basque Country on the Spanish side of the border for two weeks, and I did learn one thing. I was not in Spain, though my passport may claim otherwise. I was in the Basque Country

This is a profoundly unique region with a history so old that there’s actually a lot of mystery surrounding it. Take Euskara, the native language of the Basque, for example. Not only does this language in no way resemble Spanish or French despite being spoken within the confounds of both countries, it has no relation to the Romantic languages whatsoever, and linguists cannot figure out exactly where it originates. One thing they know for sure is that it is the oldest spoken language in Western Europe, predating all of the Romantic and Germanic languages. The best guess is Euskara’s origins are in the languages spoken by the Vascones and the Aquitanians, the ancient, tribal peoples who inhabited the land that is currently Basque Country before Roman conquest and the introduction of Indo-European language. In fact, it is the only pre-Indo-European language of Western Europe that is not extinct. What is most impressive is that this language and people have survived for millennia through the development and infringement of the Western World, despite never having total autonomy, with part of the region being governed by Spain and the other by France. Some people I spoke with told me they are not Spanish, they are Basque. They feel more of a brethren with the Basque people of France than they do with other Spaniards.

During Franco’s fascist dictatorship of Spain, there emerged a fierce armed resistance movement for Basque independence lead by Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or ETA (meaning “Basque Country and Freedom”) in the late 1950’s. Their actions were normally targeted against Spanish government officials and police, who were very reactionary against the group. ETA had a lot of support from the Basque people in the early days under Franco, who in an effort to create a unitary national Spanish identity outlawed all official use of the Basque language and tried to virtually suppress its use altogether.  As time wore on and Spain transitioned to a democracy following Franco’s death in 1975, support for ETA began to dwindle. Many people in the Basque felt it was only achieving them a second-class status among Spanish society. Finally, in 2011, ETA declared an end to all violent activities and even offered to turn over all arms to the Spanish government. Surprisingly, the government has yet to take this offer, saying they refuse to negotiate and insist upon a full dissolution of ETA. Currently, affairs remain in a confusing state of limbo, and there are still peaceful efforts being made for increased Basque autonomy and independence. Basque and Spanish are the official languages in the Basque Country now.

UPDATE: After first publishing this post, I received concerns that I was casting Spain and the Basque in a negative light by speaking of “fascists” and “terrorists.” I have edited some of my language above in an attempt to be a little less suggestive. But I would also like to add that this is a very brief political history with a lot of information missing. I can say that as we all know, the violent actions of a few never represent the views of all people. More importantly, this in no way reflects the current situation in Spain or the Basque today.  The Basque Country is a beautiful place that is totally peaceful and assimilated. Spanish and Euskara are both commonly spoken. Many people living there identify as Basque, and many people living there do not, as well. I’m just saying to take this brief, flawed political history lesson with a grain of salt. There is so much more to Spain and the Basque than what one might read on Wikipedia about their 20th century political history. Go see for yourself!

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My short time in the Basque was quite, in a word often used by Spanish speakers, tranquilo (non-speakers can get the gist). No confrontations whatsoever with social unrest. Just some warm and welcoming people happy to share their way of life. I was not able to stop appreciating the landscape. With its climate, it´s actually very reminiscent of the more hilly and mountainous parts of the Pacific Northwest. The major difference being that this rugged landscape has been continuously inhabited and farmed for millennia, so rather than lots of tall trees there are endless hills of beautiful, rolling, green pastures, all of which are filled with sheep. In every direction you turn in the countryside, you will see flocks of sheep, from a small handful up to a few hundred. This is especially surprising given the fact that they are all dairy sheep. There was once a time when small-scale, family-run dairy farms dominated the landscape of certain parts of the US. And that time was but a blink of an eye in comparison to the amount of time that sheep dairying has been occurring here on a similar scale.

The sheep here are Latxa (pronounced “lah-chuh¨), the indigenous breed to the Basque Country, especially on the Spanish side. Similar to the Basque Country itself, not a lot is known about the history of the Latxa. They are the sheep that have always been here. Most likely they can be traced back to the days of the Vascones and the Aquitanians, who undoubtedly relied on rearing sheep for sustenance. At some point along the way, they branched into two groups, the Latxa Negra and the Latxa Rubia. Negras have dark brown, blackish faces and legs, but their outer fleece is beige, making for a very stunning contrast. While I have been here, I have more often encountered Rubias, whose appearance is more what you imagine when you think of what sheep look like with feint orange, reddish spotting on their faces and legs. There have been great advances in sheep dairy genetics in recent decades, and the Latxas are starting to become threatened by the introduction of the Assaf sheep. The Assaf was bred in Israel in the last 70 years to be very high volume milk producers. The Latxa are more modest milk in milk production, but the components of their milk are very high. With thousands of years of history in the Basque, the Latxa are much more well adapted to the terrain and climate and are able to produce very high quality milk on the available forage. To express the true terroir of the the Basque landscape, you must make cheese from the milk of the Latxa sheep. Breeders of Latxa sheep can receive help from EHNE (Euskal Herriko Nekezarian Elkartasuna or “Farmers Solidarity of the Basque Country”), an organization that provides its members with free artificial insemination to improve dairy genetics within herds. This sort of free service provides a huge economic benefit for shepherds and artisan cheesemakers.

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Idiazabal is the traditional cheese made in the Basque Country of Spain, and in 1987, it received the Denomination of Origin from the Spanish government. A product that is DO has regulated stipulations for its production. In the case of Idiazabal, all production of milk and cheese must occur within the borders of the Basque Country (including the province of Navarre), it must be produced from the unpasteurized milk of the Latxa sheep using only lamb-based rennet, the curd must not be cooked above 38 degrees celsius, and it must be between 1-3 kg. The cheese must be aged for at least 60 days within the borders of the Basque Country before it can be sold as DO Idiazabal or travel somewhere else for further aging. The cheese can be either smoked or “natural,” (unsmoked). Interestingly, before I came here, I thought all Idiazabal was smoked. Not so! That is just the case for most exported Idiazabal. Around here, the natural version is quite popular as a true expression of the terroir of the milk. Some feel the smoke is masking the nuances in the cheese. I now must agree with that statement. If smoked, it must be done naturally with beech, alder, or cherry wood. There are hundreds of producers of Idiazabal. Four of them are on an industrial scale and account for about half of the total annual production, which is around 600,000 kg. There is a lot of skepticism within the community of artisan producers of true, DO Idiazabal over whether the industrial production actually adheres to the standards of the DO. Some suspect the use of pasteurized milk, not necessarily just of the Latxa breed, and the use of liquid/synthetic smoke.

Five years before the Spanish government created the DO for Idiazabal, the association of Artzai Gazta (Euskara for “Shepherds Cheese”) was formed by a group of pastores (shepherds). These pastores were the traditional shepherds of the Basque, and they decided to form an association to help each other with cheese quality and marketing. Today, there are 116 producer members of Artzai Gazta with an average flock size of 350/400 sheep and a central office in the village of Idiazabal. Obviously, all members must follow the guidelines of the DO. They are also required to produce cheese only from the milk of their own flock of sheep (if you buy milk, you cannot be a member of Artzai Gazta) and produce cheese no more than 36 hours from the time of milking. The association is funded through the sale of cheese. All members must sell 25% of their total annual production to the association, who essentially acts as a distributor. The other 75% members predominantly sell locally, while the association sells most of their 25% outside of the confines of the Basque. Artzai Gazta represents roughly 38% of that 600,000 kg of Idiazabal, which means the association is funded through the sale of roughly 60,000 kg of Idiazabal. Due to Spain’s current economic crisis, members are demanding that the association sell even more. In addition to marketing a significant portion of all members’ production, the association provides technical help for all producers, with a specialist on staff to help with troubleshooting, product quality, and food safety. Association Artzai Gazta is a means to preserve the way of life for the traditional pastores of the Basque Country in a quickly changing world, and they have certainly been very successful.

PLEASE NOTE: After the text and a bunch of pictures, you can see a step-by-step process of producing Idiazabal, pictures included.

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During my stay in the Basque, I was quite generously hosted by Joseba and Maria Jesus (Chus for short), husband and wife owners of Caserio Gorua Goiena, (Goine for short). To give you an idea of the assimilation in the Basque today, Joseba is native to the Basque, while Chus is from Logroño, the capital of La Rioja, a Spanish province south of the Basque Country. She identifies as Spanish. They have twin six-year-old daughters, and the language they speak at home is Spanish. However, Joseba speaks Euskara with other Basque people.

The farm, consisting of 8 hectares of pasture, one house, one barn, and one creamery, has been in Joseba’s family since the 18th century. Joseba has been on this land since he was 3 years old when the farm was run by his uncles. He’s been working here as long as he can remember. In 1983, as soon as he turned 18, he took out a loan for €125,000 to invest in renovating the barn. His uncles had no children, and it was this investment that swayed them to pass the farm onto him. He studied agricultural business in professional school and started out with 20 Holstein cows, which over the years grew into around 120 head. He was selling milk on the conventional marketplace, and by the early 2000’s he was starting to second guess things. The milk price had not changed in 30 years. If he wanted to add value-added products into the mix, he would have to take out a loan not just for the infrastructure but because at that time, you actually had to pay the Spanish government in order to be allowed to process cow’s milk into value added products. Emphasis on cows milk. Sheeps milk was a different story and a bit of the opposite.

Joseba met Chus in 2004, and this is when gears started shifting. In 2005 they began selling off the herd and infrastructure. They got married in 2006, went on a honeymoon in Norway for a week and returned to Spain to take part in a year-and-a-half Master Cheesemaking course in Andalucia. This course was paid for by the Andalusian government and EU. Classes, housing, and meals all provided. 2007 is when they began buying Latxa Rubia sheep and putting in the necessary infrastructure, and by 2008 they were making their first batches of cheese. This transition didn’t come cheap, though. Even after selling off the cow herd and infrastructure, they still had to invest €600,000. They took out a loan, and once they had proven that they’d begun paying it back, the EU reimbursed them for 40% of the cost.

When they began producing cheese, they started out with Idiazabal. This cheese has major name recognition both locally and abroad, so it guaranteed them a market starting out. However, they grew the operation over the years to include:

Yogurts: Natural, natural with sugar, strawberry, and Fruta de Bosco (forest fruits)

Cuajada: Cuajada is the Spanish word for “curd.” It’s an interesting fresh product that’s made from simply milk and rennet, the coagulant used in cheesemaking to transform liquid milk into curd and eventually cheese. There are no cultures added, so it must be eaten very fresh. It’s essentially milk jello!

Crema de queso: when you have old or otherwise unsalable cheese, turn it into crema de queso! They literally put the cheese through a meat grinder then blend it with milk and water to create a thick, spreadable paste. It adds a strong and spicy cheese flavor to whatever you’re eating.

Queso Fresco: fresh cheese.

Queso Tierno: Spanish for “tender cheese.” It’s a firm, natural rind 1 kg cheese that’s meant to be sold young, usually around one month. Very bright and yogurty flavors.

Rulo: A 125g lactic, bloomy sheeps milk log. Very sheepy and dense.

Gaxure: A way better version of Gjetost. It’s a caramelized whey product that’s spreadable, sweet, and quite delicious.

Today, there are approximately 800 Latxa Rubia sheep at Goine including 14 rams. The rams are for backup in case the sheep don’t take to the free service of AI offered by EHNE. They milk year round with 262 currently milking and produced around 90,000 L of milk in 2016. Five years ago, they found a Latxa shepherd in the village of Beunza about one hour away and started buying all of his milk, which added another 70,000 L per year into the mix. This shepherd comes from a long line of Latxa Negra breeders, and the family raises beautiful sheep and produces very high quality milk. Until Joseba and Chus began to buy their milk, it was all going into the industrial sheeps milk supply. Last year, Goine produced 30,000 kg of Idiazabal, representing 85% of their total production.

As mentioned before, the organization Artzai Gazta has 116 producer members. Goine cannot be members of Artzai Gazta because they do buy milk. There are around 130 Idiazabal producers total, so if you subtract the 116 from Artzai Gazta and the 4 industrial, that means there are only around 10 of these “middle-ground” producers like Goine. They are certainly in the minority. They have even very recently begun experimenting with cows milk versions of Queso Tierno and Queso Fresco. Buying sheep and cows milk and producing other products besides Idiazabal can be frowned upon by “traditionalists,” but they have found that these practices help make their business more independently viable. In addition to supporting their own family, they also have two full time herd managers, two full time creamery workers, and one full time delivery driver on salary, and they are supporting another family-run Latxa dairy. Their innovation and ability to think outside the box of tradition has lead to a business model that is sustainable without the marketing help of an outside organization. I would never say that one is better than the other. But I would say that neither is worse.

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During my stay at Goine, I had the opportunity to visit three other interesting cheese producers. The first weekend I was there we actually visited a pastoral school, simply named Artzain Eskola. It’s a small school that teaches 14 or 15 students per year about managing dairy sheep and treating health problems, making Idiazabal cheese, and most importantly, how to run a commercial farmstead cheese business and market your product. Students pay €3,000 for a six month program and live at the school during this time. The other six months of the year, they are producing cheese commercially. The school is funded by the Basque government, through the sale of cheese, and the students’ modest tuition, which includes their living expenses. They are in very high demand, but they have not begun to increase their number of students nor allow students from outside of the Basque. Their goal is to first fulfill the demand for young people living in the Basque. As a result, they end up doing consulting work with clients primarily in Mexico and Chile.

The following weekend, we crossed the border into the French side of the Basque to visit their friend Désiré, a producer of farmstead Ossau Iraty. On his farm, Ekiola, they have a mixed herd of 500 Latxa Negras and Rubias. 420 were milking at the time of our visit. They produce around 150,000 L of milk per year and transform it into Ossau Iraty, as well as a small bloomy rind cheese, yogurt, and rather unusual for this neck of the woods...ricotta. The farm consists of 25 hectares. They milk the sheep and make cheese through the winter and spring, then take the sheep to graze the high mountain pastures of the Pyrenees during the hotter months of summer. Interestingly, this model is very common with traditional sheeps milk cheesemaking in the Basque. They lamb in winter, ideally in December to get the best price for lamb meat because of the holidays, and they make cheese on the farm when the pasture isn’t so good. It’s an easier management technique because when they’re far away from the farm grazing in the summer time, they need far less management because they are not milking. (HOT TIP: Ekiola’s cheeses are sold at the Formaggio shops in Boston and NYC, so definitely seek it out.)

During one of my last days in the Basque, I made cheese with Joseba’s cousin-in-law, who also happened to be named Joseba. A native of the nearby city of San Sebastian, he and his brother bought a farm when they were both in their mid-20’s in 1999, and Lokate Baserria was born. They are a unique operation for the Basque, as they milk 200 Latxa sheep and 100 Murciana goats. Murciana goats are a Spanish breed originating from the Southeastern coast of Spain. They are smaller animals with a short, dark black and brown coat, and excellent milk producers. Joseba transforms all of the goats milk into cheese but only a small percentage of the sheeps milk, while selling the rest of it into the conventional sheeps milk market. They make an Idiazabal-style cheese from both the sheeps milk and goats milk. They do not produce DOP Idiazabal from the sheeps milk, as Joseba is not interested in being constricted by the regulations of production. He is a big fan of Ossau Iraty and would like to experiment with taking the cheese more in that direction (cutting the curd smaller, cooking it to a higher temp). In addition to these hard cheeses, he makes a semi-firm, natural rind goats milk tomme-style aged around 1 month, as well as a lactic cheese. The lactic comes in rather large formats: a 250 g wheel or 1 kg log. Both Josebas do not come from a long line of traditional pastores, and as you have read, they are both making cheeses and other dairy products outside of their region’s traditions.

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Juajo from the Association Artzai Gazta said to me that the best way to preserve the Latxa breed is to milk them and make cheese. For that reason, the DO for Idiazabal has probably significantly contributed to their (Latxas) successful numbers today. That and the Basque people’s obvious adherence to self preservation. It was truly inspiring to be in the Basque Country. I highly recommend it to anyone, especially those that are interested in dairy sheep and sheep cheesemaking. Thank you so much to Dr. Mariana Marques de Almeida for putting me in touch with Goine!

Goine’s website: http://lacteosgoine.com/

Goine’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lacteosgoine/

Ekiola’s website: http://www.fromage-de-brebis.fr/