Quest For Queijo
ANNE DESBRISAY goes on a hunt for cheese in the Azores.
…CHEESEMAKING on the Azores is a delightful invitation to gluttony…
IT DOESN'T TAKE ME LONG to learn that without a number I'm not getting any cheese. Everyone else in this shop appears to be clutching a stub of paper, waiting patiently. And then… Bingo. I see it — the tiny ticket dispenser at the far entrance. I jostle my way to the other side of the crowded room and, with #47 in hand, I'm in the game.
This is my final day on São Miguel, the biggest and busiest of the nine islands in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. I've already eaten my weight in cheese, both on Miguel, and on the smaller island of São Jorge, and I've come to this shop — O Rei dos Queijos (`the King of the Cheese!') — for a few homewardbound suitcase treats. On the edge of the Graça Market in Ponta Delgada, O Rei is packed this Thursday afternoon. With people, and also with product: sweet breads, jams and jars of local honey, oils and wine, tins of preserved tuna, bags of local tea, and shelves loaded with cherry-red bottles of pimenta da terra, the local pepper sauce that revs up breakfast here.
And, of course, with cheese. An impressive display rests in a refrigerated counter. Above the heads of the white-coated staff are long wooden boards supporting dozens more of the rounds. Forty-two types of Azorean cheese in total, I'm told.
All made with milk from free-grazing, grass-fed cows, raised on small farms, milked in the fields, and processed at local dairy cooperatives spread around these remote islands.
I have considered, from time to time, what life would be like as a dog. But I had never thought about being a cow… until now. I've met a lot of them on these islands. Word round here is that cows outnumber human souls in the Azores, and though I can't vouch
for that cow-math, I think I can testify to their quality of life. Consider this: they wander emerald green patchwork-quilt fields divided by stone walls draped with hydrangea bushes in a dozen shades of pastel. They breathe the salty air of the North Atlantic, and munch, almost exclusively, the abundant green grass. The only interruption in this steady diet of not dieting is their occasional herding to yet another fresh field for yet more delicious grass. (In this walk-about, they often cause the islands' only traffic jams.) If they ever care to look up from their chomping — and I saw little evidence of this — they could take in stunning views of oceansunsets and blue-green crater lakes, clusters of quaint white homes with red tile roofs, and rugged volcanic cliffs. They don't even have a commute to the barn for milking; milking comes to them. The twice-daily business is taken care of via (Azores-invented) mobile milking machines. These portable refrigerated parlours, along with a Gulf Stream-temperate climate, means there's no need for cow barns in the Azores, no need either for much supplementary fodder (steady rainfall throughout the year means lush, regenerating grass), or cow blankets (yearly temperatures range between 14°C and 26°C). These ladies, if they even cared, could also have incredibly high rates of job satisfaction: they alone are responsible for 35 percent of the country's milk supply and 50 percent of its cheese production. And they do it on tiny islands that represent about two percent of the entire Portuguese landmass.
So, let's just say that if I were a cow, I'd want to be a cow living on the Portuguese islands of the Azores.
Though as a human, particularly a cheese-loving one, these could happily be my islands too. The centuries-old tradition of cheesemaking on the Azores is a delightful invitation to gluttony.
I sampled so many extraordinary varieties and styles, from the creamy and mild to the tangy and fresh, to the rugged, sharp and nutty. If my feet were to the fire and I were forced to take only one to my desert island, it would be the Queijo da Isla, the golden
`island cheese' of São Jorge, sweet, nutty, earthy, chalky, crumbly, slightly stinky, and decidedly rich. Made exclusively from whole and raw cow's milk, cured and aged for a minimum of 3 months, this queijo carries the designation DOP ( Denominação de Origem Protegida), which grants it name-protection and ensures, to consumers, that it's produced only on São Jorge, using traditional methods and ingredients.
Corn, Cozido and Chocolates
There were unexpected ways to enjoy Azorean cheese on this visit. One such way was found in the São Miguel parish of Furnas. About a forty-minute drive northeast of Ponta Delgada, just next to the most easterly of the three gorgeous crater lakes on the island, Furnas is a town where the gastronomy is as much a draw as the hot springs. Small stalls in the central square (thick with sulphured air and roiling fog), sell raw corn for cooking in the hissing pools. The volcanic earth also does the work at the town's fascinating fumaroles, hot pits in scorched land into which local chefs submerge hulky Dutch ovens filled with seven sorts of meats, with root veg, cabbage and kale. Six hours later, up comes a dish called cozido das Furnas, fragrant with the cinnamon and cloves in the morcella, sweetened with local yams, and dished up with sides of rice and extra gravy. You'll be full for a week. But if you can, save a bit of room for dessert.
A fifteen-minute stroll from the fumaroles, surrounded with tropical-looking fields of taro root, is the Queijaria Furnense. It's where I met young Paula Rego and her family. I had heard Rego, barely out of her teens, was a grand fromage in the world of Azorean cheese — not so big in production (her family's small plant puts out five types of cheese, and about 550 wheels per day), but big in flavour and in ingenuity. To stand out from the crowded cheese market, the Queijaria Furnense started experimenting with using the unique volcanic waters of Furnas, rich in iron and magnesium, to make their cheese.
Paula admits she knew everything about milking cows, and absolutely nothing about cheesemaking. But facing a glut in her family's milk supply (when EU prices plummeted in 2015), and with the resourcefulness of a millennial, she turned to YouTube to learn the ABCs of the craft. It took her nearly two years, and many false starts, but the cheese recipe she landed on has resulted in a wall of framed awards for Queijaria Furnense.
Paula and her sisters sell their cheeses in a bustling cafe attached to the production factory, along with ice creams and now with a collection of Belgian chocolate truffles. Never in a life embarrassingly rich in chocolates have I tasted such fascinating flavours. Paula's truffles, called Bombons do Vale, use high quality Belgian coverings, with fillings that combine local honey, local wine, and fruits of the island — fig, blackberry, passion fruit — with her family's unique cheese.
Learning I can only buy these treats on this island, the bonbons are now next to the cheese in the home-bound suitcase. One day I expect to hear this inspiring young woman has sold her Azorean cheese-filled chocolates to wider markets. Mine would be marvellous! Until then, when I'm missing the complex flavours of the islands, I'll head to Mario's Food Centre in Ottawa. Owner Filipe Correia assures me he has my dessert island favourite, the seven-months-aged isla cheese of São Jorge.