“The farmer in the dell. The farmer in the dell. Heigh-ho, the derry-o, the farmer in the
dell!” This children’s nursery rhyme and
game tells of a long series of events, with the farmer taking a wife, the wife
taking a child, the child taking a...well, everyone knows this popular
chorus. However, at the end, the cheese
is standing alone. This may be a bit of
a stretch, but it really is what came to mind when I visited with twenty-five
year cheese making veteran Monte McIntyre, who now lives in the Black Hills
after retiring from his years of making sure cheese could stand on its own.
Born and
raised on a dairy and cattle ranch south of Gregory, South Dakota, it wasn’t
necessarily a stretch that Monte was a professional cheese maker for
twenty-five years. However, the road
Monte took to get to this profession was a lengthy one. After high school graduation and attending
the University of South Dakota for one year, Monte did not know what he wanted
to do as a career, but he did know what he wanted to do as a hobby…and that was
travel! He went to Colorado but landed
in Mexico for a period of time doing “mission work” (which is what I am sure he
told his Catholic mother), but in all actuality, he had a lot of fun “bumming”
around the beautiful, tropical country.
Still unsure of a career path,
Monte enlisted in the Army, which offered him many more opportunities for
travel. In the late 1960s, he ended up
in Europe on an “extended vacation” and traveled through France, Spain, and
Portugal, enjoying the excellent food, cheese, wine, and beer. After the Army, Monte again enrolled in USD,
this time choosing history teaching as his major. After a teaching assistantship at the
university, he decided that vocation wasn’t for him either. He ended up with a business degree, working
first for an electronics company, then in ag-related business. The agriculture crash of 1983 devastated most
of his rancher clients, and Monte’s business crashed at the same time.
He was then divorced from his first
wife and looking at starting over from scratch.
Yet there was something that had always in his life—the love of
agriculture, food, wine, and cheese.
Monte met Beth (his current wife of nearly thirty years), who was the
program director for the South Dakota Dairy Council. Through her, Monte saw numerous “kids” in
agricultural-based educational programs getting jobs left and right. Monte decided his stint in construction (the
job he was working at the time) was over and enrolled in South Dakota State
University, graduating in 1990 with a degree in diary manufacturing—finally
finding an occupation that blended all of his interests.
Monte took his first job at Maytag
Dairy Farms in Newton, Iowa, making Maytag Blue Cheese. He enjoyed this job, but left after a decade
to take on a new challenge: being the cheesemaker for a brand new company just
getting started. Monte—with Beth, of
course—arrived in California on July 4, 2000, to begin making cheese at Point
Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company. The
first vat of cheese Monte made at Point Reyes was in August but was not quite
ready for consumers. In December of
2000, Point Reyes chees hit shelves, first at farmer’s markets in San
Francisco, where the high-quality cheese sold out in less than two hours.
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| A wonderful cheese plate, including some blue cheese. |
In northern California, where
artisan products were a way of life, cheese makers like Monte were almost
treated like celebrities. He would try
to keep his job a secret when he and Beth went out to dine because if he was
found out, restaurants would comp their entire meal! This was an environment in which “people were
interested where food came from,” and Point Reyes' cheeses did very well. The cows milked for the cheese were right on
the same farm where the cheese was produced.
Consumers loved this; it was part of the lifestyle where fresh oysters,
artisan baked goods, and boutique wines were around every corner. Though the days of a cheese maker were filled
with long hours and hard work—often starting at 2:30 a.m. with actual cheese
making, then a break for lunch before going back to the “office” to fill orders
all afternoon—Monte and Beth loved the lifestyle and environment in which they
lived.
However, as the cheesemaker at
large companies, Monte’s housing was always provided. When he and Beth moved to California, they
never purchased and invested in a house of their own, so once it came time to
think about retirement, they had no house to sell to reinvest wherever they
were going to live out their golden years.
Then, in 2008, like so many others, the McIntyres’ 401ks took a hit and
looked more like “101ks”--as Monte said--so returning to the Black Hills where he
and Beth had already purchased a house for future retirement living was not yet
an option. Instead, after ten years at
Point Reyes, he became the cheese maker at Swiss Valley Farms in Wisconsin. The large operation made excellent cheese,
some that can even be found in shops in the Black Hills. Finally, after almost five years there, it was time
to officially retire. Monte and Beth (also
a South Dakota native) arrived in Hill City the week after Atlas, the crazy blizzard
of October 2013, dumped several feet of snow on their home.
Retirement has been more of an
adjustment than the weather, as Monte originally had thought to open up a commercial
cheese production facility here in the Hills.
However, there is no dairy farm close enough to produce the amount of
milk necessary for a large-scale business; also, the upfront capital needed to
build a cheese factory was not in Monte’s retirement plans. He does still make small amounts of cheese for
his personal use…and some to give to family and friends. (I can tell you from experience that Monte’s
house-made blue is some of the best I have ever tried. I was lucky enough to receive a chunk on two
separate—very lucky—occasions.) Beth also
has gotten in on the at-home cheese making.
She often makes mozzarella, ricotta, and fromage blanc; she and Monte even
taught a cheese making class at Someone’s in the Kitchen, Beth’s current
employer.
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| Chef Beth's quiche--with caramelized onion, bacon, and cheese (of course!). |
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| A light lunch prepared by Beth, with cheese and a fresh baguette as a large part of the meal. |
Testified by the fact that Monte
still makes it, blue cheese has always been his favorite cheese to produce. He also considers white cheddar and goat
cheeses some of his preferred cheeses to make.
However, he loves to eat all sorts of cheeses. He loves Affinois, a Brie from France; Vella
dry jack and mezzo secco, from a Sonoma cheesemaker he personally knew; and
Bellwether cheeses, made from sheep’s milk.
A true blue cheese connoisseur, he only likes blue cold, not warm or
cooked in other recipes. Beth, on the other hand, also loves blue
cheese, but in any form! She makes a
wonderful blue cheese and honey crostini that used to sell out at her Maytag
(appliances) cooking demonstrations.
Beth, the chef of the family, uses many different cheeses in a multitude
of ways—in salads, soups, Italian-style pastas, homemade mac and cheeses, and
(of course) grilled cheese sandwiches. Still,
both Beth and Monte love to let the cheese stand alone, with a great glass of
wine, usually from their favorite producer—Mettler Family Vineyards (a winery in
Lodi, California with a family connection to Beth’s ancestors). In addition to Mettler wines, they both enjoy
(mostly reds) from Kenwood, Coppola, Louis Martini, Brown Estate, and J Lohr (fellow
South Dakota native), among many others they were able to experience while
living in California.
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| A small glass of Mettler Petit Sirah. |
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| Monte and a block of his house-made blue--a wonderful cheese! |
How to Make Cheese…For
Amateurs
I had Monte explain the basic
process of how to make blue cheese. I
would say this was how to make cheese for dummies, but since I was the one
asking…well, you know. Anyway, Monte
said that making cheese is all about ph and time, depending on the cheese and
the cheese maker. Here are the basic
steps.
1. Purchase all cultures, molds, milks, etc.
before beginning. There are businesses that specialize in the selling of all
things cheese making.
2. Add
starter cultures to milk.
3. Heat
milk to a medium heat—around 95 degrees.
4. According
to those magical factors of ph and time, add blue cheese mold.
5. According
to ph levels, add coagulant.
6. Cut
into various size cubes.
7. Set
for a certain amount of time, then stir.
8. As
curd firms, check ph.
9. Draw
out whey.
10. Put
in forms, usually of four to six pounds; cheese now in chunks.
11. Turn
the chunks for up to three days.
12. Salt
for three days.
13. Pierce
holes in the cheese to aerate so mold will grow.
14. After
mold develops, seal cheese in bags or wax.
15. Put
in long term storage, anywhere from three to eight months.
16. Cut,
serve, and enjoy!
*It is important to note that all
of this is done by hand (by most artisan cheese makers, anyway), so it is a
very labor-intensive process.
