New Zealand cheesemaker discovers blue cheese in mouldy hay bale
Simon Berry was on a quest to look for a special strain of mould to make the first blue cheese in New Zealand. And after six months of searching through the limestone caves of North Otago, he finally hit the jackpot.
But the owner of Whitestone Cheese didn't find Penicillium roqueforti, the mould originally from caves in the south of France. It was found in a bale of wet hay.
Berry spoke with As It Happens host Carol Off about that discovery, and the blue cheese that came from it. Here is part of that conversation.
Simon, what made you go on this quest to make New Zealand blue cheese?
Originally, years ago, we went to the French Roquefort caves in the south of France and saw how the original blue cheese caves old cheese is made sitting in limestone caves. And after some discussions here with our cheesemaker we realized that we had similar limestone caves in our backyard. In our environment here, in North Otago.
So we thought, "Well if they can grow mould over there in limestone caves, we've got limestone caves here too and we'll go and see if we can find our own."
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This kind of mould, this is Penicillium roqueforti you need right?
Yeah, that's right. So there's blue mould that's placed into blue cheese and hence the name roqueforti is named after the Roquefort regions of south of France.
Did you have success with the caves, with the limestone caves, giving you mould?
We didn't have any immediate success and we went to several locations. We were going out after making cheese in the afternoons and some of the boys would shoot out on a spare weekend, on a Saturday. You know, having to explain to farmers that, "Is it OK if we go swab some caves?" And they were, you know, excited about it or interested with it. But we had no success.
Where did you finally find some mould that worked?
We got it at Mark up at our lab in Christchurch, up the road where we were sealing the swabs. He called, it must have been six weeks ago, and said I've found a roqueforti come in from some hay.
From hay? Like a bale of hay?
Bales of hay. So a biodynamic beef farmer was opening up his hay that was ripped. It's called haylage and it's ripped up and wet. So it's high moisture and he had some funky looking mould in there and he was a bit nervous about feeding it to his own calf heifers. So he sent a sample of the hay off to the lab that we use saying, "Can you just check that for toxicity?" Came back clear for toxicity but it also came back with roqueforti in there. So the lab rang us saying, "You'll never guess what. Look what we found."
Eureka! This was exactly what you were looking for.
Yeah, yeah fascinating. So he isolated the strain. We didn't want to bring it into the factories straight away either so we did a single cheese. The cheesemaker crested at home. And then he brought it in and it just looked beautiful. And we said, "Hey I think we're onto a winner here."
And is it like perfect, good, stinky blue cheese?
It doesn't smell too bad. It smells pretty good. The flavour's quite mild but it's got a complex finish to it, we call it. It almost has a hint of rural mushroom, is what I got out of it on the first taste. And yeah, it looks great. Beautiful looking mould.
The farmer whose hay this came from, what is he saying about all this?
Oh he's really excited, yeah. He's a beef farmer and we've named the first cheese after it, called Shenley Station. And yeah, we're going to keep sending him cheese.
And what's the perfect pairing with Shenley Station blue?
Yeah, I would say a white wine. Because it's a subtle flavour, we're doing the cheese to be subtle as well so it's not overpowering. Or a light lager beer as well. Something that's quite light because it's a delicate flavour.
And I'm sure you're talking about a New Zealand white?
Yes, of course. A lovely sauv blanc.
This interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity. For more on this story, listen to our full interview with Simon Berry.