First Days on the Farm. CHEDDAR.

Wednesday, April 15th marked the beginning of my internship at Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro, VT. On Tuesday afternoon, the mini-van was packed with enough t-shirts and socks, my bike, cheese books, camera, art supplies and snacks. My delighted and slightly nervous parents and I arrived at the Lakeview Inn on Breezy Point Rd. at 3pm.

After climbing up to the 3rd floor, unpacking some bags, scoping out the joint and getting acquainted with my new abode, we stopped at the library (free wireless and awesome book collection) and the Willey's Market down the road (the only game in town, and open only until 5:30pm) to check out the downtown scene. No signs of farm produce yet, but I'm crossing my fingers for spring ramps and fiddleheads. Evening came, parents drove off into the dirt road sunset and I waved and thought about the months to come... This is what I wanted, a once in a lifetime learning opportunity on one of the most innovative and exciting cheese making and aging facilities in the country.
Day one began with the sunrise above. I was up at 6, headed to the farm (about 2 miles from the inn) for the 7am morning meeting. There is a lot to do, needless to say. My internship will some days in the cheese house and some in the cellars (cheese caves). Most of the work is serious manual labor, as you will note in the posts to come. The first day was cheddar centered. The Cellars at Jasper Hill age Cabot's award winning Clothbound Cheddar in vault #6. A humongous hangar sized concrete structure housing hundreds of 35 lb wheels of cheddar aging in various stages of readiness. The Cheddars are usually ready at 12 months but will need a lot of tending and care throughout their stay. Caring for cheese at the aging stage of their development or affinage, (hyperlink worth reading!!) is a full time job. Like little babies, cheeses need to be washed, cleaned, patted down, turned and snuggled. Really. Each cheese is unique and requires a different and distinct routine.
So, after a brief training on operating the mini lift (used to reach those 30 ft shelved in the vaults) and a demo on correct hand washing and Cellars hygiene and sanitizing, I was taken into vault 6, aka The Great Kingdom of Cheddar. Jasper Hill needed to ship out 192 wheels of Cabot Clothbound that day so our job was to take down the ready cheddars, dust them of mites (which I will talk about next post) and get them ready for shipment.

After lunch, I was put on Larding duty. I hate to be the one to break the really bad news for all of you non-porcine eaters and vegetarians. Many cloth bound cheddars (not the rectangles from the grocery store) are rubbed down with lard. The lard promotes a strong and mite-less rind, provides a barrier for air which would create unwanted mold and dryness. All that to lead up to the next job, re-larding the cheddars.

From larding, we went to packing and wrapping the cheeses for shipment. First, counting 140 sticker labels to put into the packages with the cheese, wrapping the huge mothers in giant waxed butcher paper, weighing each one (34-36lbs) and boxing them up.

Cleaning up the cellars means washing down everything that was in contact with cheese. Sanitizing with a dilution of chlorine bleach, squeegeeing the concrete floors, walls and surfaces and putting all tools, gloves, racks, shelves and other supplies to dry. And that was day one. Day one. Shit. I should have brought along my masseuse.