...from the travel journal...
Day Seven. Monday.
We had breakfast and showered and got out of Rolf's in good time, giving a woman that we met at breakfast a ride into Skibereen. From there we drove to Schull and finally found Gubbeen Farm, although the roads to the old farmhouse were tiny and twisty and the weather was misty.
The Aga cooker in the kitchen of the old farmhouse, site of 5 generations of family meals.
We had tea and talked with Giana Furguson for a while, (she's an amazing woman with an incredible sense of what good food is and what it means!) and then took a tour of the cheese making area...
Jarred and Giana Furguson
...then met husband Tom, for a tour of the barns and a look at all the animals; the cows that provide the milk for the cheese and the pigs who get to eat the whey from the cheese making. Then a walk down the hill to where son, Fingal, a very charming young man, makes Irish bacon and smoked sausages from the pigs.
After that we all met in the big farm house kitchen for a noon time meal at the big wooden table, a wonderful warm place with it's Aga cooker. We had a potato soup, fresh bread, Gubbeen cheese, (of course), sun dried tomatoes and some of Fingal's ham, all totally fabulous. Conversation at the table ranged back and forth between food and politics, lively and intelligent and fun. For afters we had a walnut cream tart made with cream from a neighboring dairy. These people are all very much into the Slow Food movement, and there was a lot of talk about it and the people in Ireland and how they are fighting back against the huge food groups and the paranoid ?health? inspectors and working to produce their own artisan products. Giana told us how the rind of their cheese had been analyzed by one of the local scientists, and how they had found four totally new micro floras. She said it was like discovering a new star. One of them is named after the Gubbeen Farm. As I sat there, I realized that I was in the presence of people who love where they live and what they are doing; people who truly understand what artisan food means to the world around them. It was an honor to have lunch with them.
We then headed up toward Durrus, and up into the mountains through a rather lunar looking landscape to Jeffa Gill's operation, Durrus Farmhouse. (BTW, just take a good look at that pic; the roads we traveled on to visit these farm houses, although incredibly beautiful, were tiny! And very rarely marked in any way! It's a miracle that we found these places really, and I must say here that Jarred's driving was superb! He has my undying gratitude for doing all the driving!!)
She gave us a tour and we talked about raw milk cheeses, since she is one of the few people who still make one in Ireland, (and the only raw milk cheese maker that we visited on this trip), and the various things that must be attended to when making a raw milk cheese. Every time the cheese is touched, a notation is made on a log sheet in order to track what happens as each individual batch is made. The cheese has to be handled with great care to ensure that no nasty micro organisms get in. Over tea in the kitchen, the subject of what would sell better in the states came up, and Jeffa wondered if a pasteurized version of her cheese would sell. I recommended that she have another name for it if she decided to do it, so as not to confuse people, as Durrus is quite well known as a raw milk cheese, and a very good one. Jeffa gave us a cheese to take with, a young Durrus. It was a beautiful thing, this cheese, younger than we could get it in the states. And totally absolutely divine!
We headed to Cork and made good time, but proceeded immediately to get lost in the city, and to repeatedly get bad directions, since we were unable to figure out where we were, as there were few street signs in evidence. We finally did find a hostel, not the one we were looking for and a bit shabby, but it was getting late, so we settled, it was good enough. Went out for a quick bite, and an early night. We had to be on the road by 8:30 AM. as that?s when the street parking changed, but that was a good thing, as we had a way to go to get to Ardrahan Farm!//
There are quite a lot of pics of the various cheese making procedures and quite a bit of info that I collected during our visits. I'm keeping the technical stuff down here a bit; all of it will be in the report I'm doing for my fellow cheese mongers and a lot of it in the article that I'm writing for the national WFM newsletter, but it might seem a bit much for those of you who are not driven totally delerious by cheese, hehe!
durlx
Day Seven. Monday.
We had breakfast and showered and got out of Rolf's in good time, giving a woman that we met at breakfast a ride into Skibereen. From there we drove to Schull and finally found Gubbeen Farm, although the roads to the old farmhouse were tiny and twisty and the weather was misty.
The Aga cooker in the kitchen of the old farmhouse, site of 5 generations of family meals.
We had tea and talked with Giana Furguson for a while, (she's an amazing woman with an incredible sense of what good food is and what it means!) and then took a tour of the cheese making area...
Jarred and Giana Furguson
...then met husband Tom, for a tour of the barns and a look at all the animals; the cows that provide the milk for the cheese and the pigs who get to eat the whey from the cheese making. Then a walk down the hill to where son, Fingal, a very charming young man, makes Irish bacon and smoked sausages from the pigs.
After that we all met in the big farm house kitchen for a noon time meal at the big wooden table, a wonderful warm place with it's Aga cooker. We had a potato soup, fresh bread, Gubbeen cheese, (of course), sun dried tomatoes and some of Fingal's ham, all totally fabulous. Conversation at the table ranged back and forth between food and politics, lively and intelligent and fun. For afters we had a walnut cream tart made with cream from a neighboring dairy. These people are all very much into the Slow Food movement, and there was a lot of talk about it and the people in Ireland and how they are fighting back against the huge food groups and the paranoid ?health? inspectors and working to produce their own artisan products. Giana told us how the rind of their cheese had been analyzed by one of the local scientists, and how they had found four totally new micro floras. She said it was like discovering a new star. One of them is named after the Gubbeen Farm. As I sat there, I realized that I was in the presence of people who love where they live and what they are doing; people who truly understand what artisan food means to the world around them. It was an honor to have lunch with them.
We then headed up toward Durrus, and up into the mountains through a rather lunar looking landscape to Jeffa Gill's operation, Durrus Farmhouse. (BTW, just take a good look at that pic; the roads we traveled on to visit these farm houses, although incredibly beautiful, were tiny! And very rarely marked in any way! It's a miracle that we found these places really, and I must say here that Jarred's driving was superb! He has my undying gratitude for doing all the driving!!)
She gave us a tour and we talked about raw milk cheeses, since she is one of the few people who still make one in Ireland, (and the only raw milk cheese maker that we visited on this trip), and the various things that must be attended to when making a raw milk cheese. Every time the cheese is touched, a notation is made on a log sheet in order to track what happens as each individual batch is made. The cheese has to be handled with great care to ensure that no nasty micro organisms get in. Over tea in the kitchen, the subject of what would sell better in the states came up, and Jeffa wondered if a pasteurized version of her cheese would sell. I recommended that she have another name for it if she decided to do it, so as not to confuse people, as Durrus is quite well known as a raw milk cheese, and a very good one. Jeffa gave us a cheese to take with, a young Durrus. It was a beautiful thing, this cheese, younger than we could get it in the states. And totally absolutely divine!
We headed to Cork and made good time, but proceeded immediately to get lost in the city, and to repeatedly get bad directions, since we were unable to figure out where we were, as there were few street signs in evidence. We finally did find a hostel, not the one we were looking for and a bit shabby, but it was getting late, so we settled, it was good enough. Went out for a quick bite, and an early night. We had to be on the road by 8:30 AM. as that?s when the street parking changed, but that was a good thing, as we had a way to go to get to Ardrahan Farm!//
There are quite a lot of pics of the various cheese making procedures and quite a bit of info that I collected during our visits. I'm keeping the technical stuff down here a bit; all of it will be in the report I'm doing for my fellow cheese mongers and a lot of it in the article that I'm writing for the national WFM newsletter, but it might seem a bit much for those of you who are not driven totally delerious by cheese, hehe!
durlx
posted by durlx at 3/29/2004 08:42:00 PM
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