Cape Breton: Stirrings of an Artisan Economy

Standing with Ron Muise in his sheep pasture on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, you'd think that this would be the perfect setting for a thriving dairy industry. And, according to Ron, you'd be right, except that it ceased thriving a few decades ago. Growing up on the island, he remembered fifty or more dairies dotting the countryside, with happy cows munching on the rich grass that thrived on the island's sea air.

By the time I met him this year, there were only a handful left…one of which was his own Wandering Shepherd creamery near Sydney. He himself had left the island as a young man, moving to Europe to become a chef and eventually owning his own restaurants. As a chef, Muise said he'd always had a strong interest in cheese and, as is common in European restaurants, had always featured a selection of favorite cheeses for his cheese courses.

The desire to make his own cheese coincided with an opportunity to move back to his wife's family's farm on Cape Breton's Mira River, a property of about 24 hectares (just under 60 acres). He sought out the advice of Vermont's Peter Dixon, the Johnny Appleseed of the artisan cheese movement and a go-to guy for anyone getting started in the cheese biz.

Because of Canada's dairy cow quota system, and not being a big fan of goats or goat cheeses, he decided to throw in his lot with sheep. It didn't hurt that his grandmother had a sheep farm when he was growing up, and he really liked cheeses made from their milk. He built a cheese room next to the family farmhouse and last October got a license to start production of his own raw ewe's milk cheeses.

Muise makes a Roquefort-style cheese he's calling Gorm Ailig (Gaelic for "Alec's Blue") and Lauchie's Tomme, both named for his two sons, as well as an Ossau-Iraty type called Caora Caise (“Sheep Cheese” in Gaelic). Currently he's selling them at the Cape Breton Farmers' Market in Sydney and three other markets across the island, and is finding an eager audience among local chefs interested in featuring his cheeses on their menus.

He's become a mentor to a batch of young farmers eager to join the nascent local food scene. With only 45 sheep of his own and his cheese production soon growing beyond the milk they can provide, a couple of local farmers have started flocks of their own with the idea that they'll help provide the additional milk Muise will need. He's also working with the government to implement programs that will see more development in artisan production for small scale producers.

Muise is inspiring when he talks about the potential for the island to develop an artisan sector, with the rolling terrain perfect for small farms and with plenty of land available at affordable prices. The drawback? A six-month growing season, from May through October. But with the Cape Breton farmers' market and a local bank providing microloans for farmers and producers to develop their businesses, Muise is optimistic that the island can become a center for artisan products in Eastern Canada.

Read the other posts in this series: Arriving in Nova Scotia and The View, Redux, Talk about Good Stuff! and A Forager Finds Home.

Vermont Vacation: Cheese and Community

When I first called Peter Dixon to arrange an interview with him, he mentioned that he was due to put on an annual dinner for his village of Westminster West and invited me to come. Not being a stupid person, I accepted. Dave and I drove down, stopping in to visit David Major of Vermont Shepherd on the way.

David and his first wife, Cindy, started making some of Vermont's first artisan cheese on their property in 1990, and trained several of the state's most well-known cheesemakers at their Dairy Sheep Education Center. The cheese that they make, the eponymous Vermont Shepherd, is an aged, raw milk sheep cheese that is only available seasonally and has been lauded as one of the finest of its kind in the country.

The afternoon we arrived, David and his second wife, Yesenia Ielpi, were heading out to bring in the sheep for the evening's milking with their two border collies. They milk the sheep twice a day and make cheese every two days during the spring and summer, then age the cheeses in the hand-dug cave on the property for four to eight months. Their supply usually runs out about the time they start all over in the spring, but it's available on their website and at outlets around the country.

Leaving Vermont Shepherd (sadly, in the middle of milking), we drove the mile or so to the tiny village of Westminster West on the outskirts of the town of Westminster. According to Peter, these little villages got started when a group of townspeople would leave to start a new church and settle nearby. The dinner was being held in the Congregational Church in the village, and we found Peter and some helpers out behind the parish barbecuing chicken and vegetables over a couple of large grills. It being a warm evening, the village children played among the headstones of their former neighbors and relatives in the cemetery across the road.

It was a wonderful demonstration of the continuity that exists in these little communities, and that same spirit was evident during the gathering over dinner. Attended by local residents and their families, as well as summer people and even a recently elected legislator who lives nearby, it was a time to catch up on news, lobby for favorite causes and enjoy the harvest of midsummer together.

We felt privileged to be invited and welcomed into their midst, and got to chat over dinner and cleaning up the dishes afterwards. And now we have memories of that warm and perfect evening with Peter and his wife, Jake and Dahlia, Peter and Caitlin and the other wonderful people of Westminster West.

Read the rest of the posts in this series: Da Big Cheese!, Burlington and Environs, Twig on a Branch, My First Time and Muddling Through Middlebury. 

Vermont Vacation: Da Big Cheese!

It had been way too long since we'd been to see Dave's mother and sister in Vermont, so we decided head up to New England this summer for a little quality time with the fam. And since Culinate.com had asked me to do an article on artisan cheese for their fall issue, I made some appointments with a few artisan cheesemakers to see what they were up to.

According to Jeffrey Roberts, whose Atlas of American Artisan Cheese was just published and lists 34 producers in Vermont alone, "great cheese starts from complex, vital relationships among land, climate and animals." And perhaps no one in Vermont exemplifies that better than Peter Dixon of Dairy Foods Consulting, the go-to guy in the country if you want to start making artisan cheese. Like a latter-day Johnny Appleseed, he's spreading the gospel of artisan cheese across the country and working with new and established cheesemakers to start up their businesses or expand their existing product lines.

He's worked with four cheesemakers in Oregon alone, and is currently consulting with owner Angela Miller of Consider Bardwell Farm in West Pawlet, VT, on their cow and goat's milk cheeses (photo, upper left; notice the date on the house: 1819!). The day we talked he was cutting curds and making wheels of their Manchester cheese (photo, upper right). He says, "This is a wonderful kind of business to have. It's easy on the land because you're grazing and the animals are eating forage. You can get by with less grain because when you make cheese you don't need to have the cows or goats produce as much milk as when you're selling your milk. And the value of the milk is high because you're making it into cheese. It lends itself to going back to the old-fashioned way of dairy farming."

He also notes that the proliferation of farmers markets has "developed enough that people can jump into this type of business and become successful. Just look at Jasper Hill. Three years ago there was no Jasper Hill. Now there's 70,000 pounds more cheese mostly in the northeastern seaboard market. There have been ten new ones starting up to contribute another 100,000 to 200,000 pounds. Some kind of market is gobbling up all this production." And to that we can only add, "Bring it on!"

Read the rest of the posts in this series: Burlington and Environs, Twig on a Branch, My First Time, Muddling Through Middlebury and Cheese and Community.