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Gourmet cheese has a sense of placeBy Doug Rich
This cave was not built with shelter in mind, however. Landers built this cave for aging the gourmet goat cheeses she produces on her farm. The cheese-aging cave is part of the construction work that has been going on at Landers farm as she prepares to enter the commercial cheesemaking business. This expansion includes a new climate controlled milking parlor, an office, and a cheese making room complete with bulk milk storage and cheese vats. Dairy goats Landers grew up on a dairy farm where her family made cheese. She switched to dairy goats in 1972. The 100-head registered American Alpine goat herd she has now originated in Alaska where they lived before moving to eastern Kansas eight years ago. "We raised every goat in this herd," Landers said. "We try to be as closed as possible. We do not buy or rent any animals." Landers has been making cheese for sale from her farm but decided it was time to take the next step. She was hand milking her goats in a small shed that she built herself and making cheese seasonally at her home. She aged the cheese on her back porch. "There was cheese everywhere," Landers said. "We decided we either needed to go smaller or go larger." Making gourmet cheese is part science and part art. The area where she is located, the climate, the feedstuffs available to her goats, and the aging process will influence the cheese that Landers makes. A sense of place "In the farmstead model we are using, I have complete control over the animals, how we milk, and the quality of the milk," Landers said. "Fresh milk comes right from the parlor, right into the cheese vat. There is no transportation time. We use milk that is 24 hours old or less to make our cheese." Landers will be producing fresh cheeses that don't require aging and hard cheeses that require aging. The locale will flavor all of these cheeses. In this case, the locale is rural Johnson County, Kan. "We take what is grown in the area and the goats transform this into a specific character of the milk and then the milk is transformed into a cheese with a character specific to this area," Landers said. For example, Landers said, Roquefort cheese is only made in Roquefort, France under specific conditions. Roquefort cheese must be made from the milk of a particular breed of sheep, cured in a specific location, and aged with a particular type of mold. "What we are celebrating here is the actual locality," Landers said. "Sunshine and climate produce certain plants that produce a cheese unique to that area." Landers called this type of production terroir. This is a French term that represents the idea that an agriculture product is produced at a specific site in a specific way and this results in a particular flavor unique to that location. The product has a sense of place. Time is an important ingredient in cheese making and this is where Landers' unique cheese cave plays a role. The longer a cheese is aged, the sharper it becomes. Landers said all cheese starts out very flavorless. You need to allow the chemical reactions to happen over a specific time period to create the unique flavors. Cave The man-made cheese cave is 11-feet underground with two separate rooms. Blocks of cheese ready to be aged are moved to the cave with a dumb-waiter. Two air-conditioners, one for each room, help to control the temperature and humidity in the cave. "You can't judge a cave until you start aging cheese in it," Landers said. Landers is still learning how to control the temperature and humidity in the cave. Because the cheeses themselves give off moisture, you don't know if your ventilation system is moving out the right amount of humidity. One side of the cave is for bloomy rind varieties and the other is for waxed and natural rind cheese varieties. Bloomy rind cheeses are highly oxygenated and for that reason the ventilation system on that side of the cave exchanges the air 10 times a day. Bloomy rind cheese is seeded with mold directly in the milk. This type of cheese has a fuzzy white rind. Landers calls the other side a 'quiet cave' because the air is exchanged only once a day. This side of the cave is used for aging waxed and unwaxed or natural rind cheeses. Natural rind cheese is produced naturally from contact with the air rather than being seeded directly in the milk. It develops a whitish-yellow rind speckled with blue mold during the ripening process. This mold grows for two to three months and is scrubbed off every day. "We end up with a nice rind that allows us to age the cheese," Landers said. Waxed cheeses are dipped in a pot of wax, which covers them with a thick coating of red wax during the aging process. Certain types of cheese will age for six to nine months and some cheddar will be aged for years. Like any other dairy, Landers' dairy goat and cheese making facility must be certified by the state. She hopes to receive that certification in June so that she can begin selling cheese at sites other than her farm. Stores, groceries, and restaurants from Lawrence, Kan., to New York City have made inquiries about when she will be able to supply them with her gourmet goat cheese. This summer, Kathy Landers will be spending a lot of time in her cave, but not for protection from tornadoes. She will be checking on the progress of her unique cheese products. Doug Rich can be reached by calling 785-749-5304 or by e-mail at richhpj@aol.com. 6/30/08 Date: 6/25/08
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This has been a record-breaking year here in tornado alley. And it has everyone thinking about where they would take shelter if a tornado came through their area. Kathy Landers, De Soto, Kan., knows exactly where she and her family would take shelter; a man-made cave just a few feet from their back door.