Cheesemakers Sharing About the Pandemic - A Series/1

We, at New England Cheesemaking Supply Co. (cheesemaking.com) have had the honor of getting to know you (our worldwide community of home cheesemakers) for over 44 years now. We have heard from many of you during that time and you have shared your recipes, your life stories, your inventions and your comments in over 800 of these blog articles and in our monthly Moos-Letters. We are beyond grateful.

Now, all around the world, you are sharing a mutual experience with us – a pandemic we never thought we would see in our lifetimes. We hope you are all staying safe and healthy.

This Series

Many of you have given us blog interviews in the last 10 years (since we started this blog) and many of you will be interviewed in the future (when we hear from you). We reached out to a few of our interviewees (randomly) to ask if they would share their experiences during this pandemic. We thought it would be best to ask folks we have already interviewed so we could link to their interviews and you could see more about who they are. The response has been overwhelming!

We have only contacted a few cheesemakers at this point – we went through and randomly picked out a small sample. If you are reading this and you would like to share a paragraph or two about your experience as a cheese maker during this pandemic, please send it to jeri@cheesemaking.com. We will post everyone’s story in a continuing series. If you haven’t been interviewed by us in the past, please let us know and we will get started with it right away. It simply involves answering some questions and sending us some pics.

We start with a few of our international friends:

Q. How are you weathering the pandemic?

Tony Hamblyn in New Zealand

Tony Hamblyn in New Zealand (2017), Tony Hamblyn in New Zealand – Update (2019)

We are in complete lock down for the next three weeks. From midnight on 25 March all of NZ, apart from essential services, went into complete lock down. This means that the only reason we can leave home is to go to the supermarket, doctor, or to exercise in our local area.

Fortunately, we live on a lifestyle block not far from Auckland city, so we’ve kind of been used to being a bit isolated and having enough supplies to get us through a reasonable period of time.

It would be easy to blob out and binge watch Netflix shows or read, however this is a great opportunity as well to learn new skills and clear up a lot of chores that have needed to be done. It’s going to be really tough for many people in NZ because nearly every business is shut, so no restaurants are open, and there are no food deliveries. At the other end of all this is the real possibility that some business will not recover. I just hope that a minimal number of people are adversely affected.

I’ve just realized that it’s almost three years since the first blog article, so how time passes by so quickly. Its been a really dry season this year with drought conditions throughout much of my area. Our milk supply as a result has really dropped significantly such that we are only milking two of our five cows. We do have two that are calving in May, so they were going to be dry anyway.

Because the cows are at the end of their lactation cycle, it’s been a challenge to make cheese, although today is the third time in 10 days that I’m cheese making. Today its going to be a 3 kg (7 lb) block of Havarti. I’ve already made one block of Havarti, and about 14 blocks of Haloumi over the last ten days. I’ve decided to make a few cheeses that we can eat reasonably quickly after being made, as we have plenty of cheese in the cave.

Tatiana Thomas in Russia

Tatiana Thomas in Russia (2015), Tatiana’s Refrigerator “Cave” (2017)

It’s hard to imagine that people around the world are experiencing a pandemic. Things are all around going bad in Russia. It seemed that Russian authorities withhold the truth about coronavirus in the country.

About me – it is more or less normal. I am locked up at home and almost don’t go out.

I sold my goats. It was very difficult for me to keep everything going – the house, goats, cheese, main job, etc … I decided I could cross one thing off my list. But, I still make cheese for my family, friends and neighbors from farm milk. Last time I made it, I even found new customers for my cheese.

I work as proof-reader for mass media. And now I am studying to be a programmer. I’ve been working at home for 5 years, and I like it very much! (The main thing is to do with a home office: have a comfortable seat and adhere strictly to a work schedule.)

I am a so-so cheesemaker now, but it is still my matter for the soul.

I don’t know what will be in near and not so near future, because the Russian people are rapidly becoming impoverished. A lot of my friends have debt, and they are now sitting at home, so president Vl. Putin sent all people to a forced vacation. Most businesses don’t have any funds to pay for not-jobbing. In conditions of total unemployment, nobody would have money.

I’m sorry for these emotions, but I still think about this, and I, like many other people, don’t know what to do. I have no debt, but still.

I’m very interested in what other cheesemakers are doing during this period, so I’m looking forward to your article!

Mariana Veiga in Slovenia

Making Cheese with Nomads in Mongolia (2017), Brigadeiro (2018), Mari’s Brazilian Cheese Bread (2019), Cheese Festival & Cows’ Ball in Slovenia (2019)

Since the beginning of March I’ve been working from home with my husband. Our son stays home full time now since kindergarten is closed until further notice. We have at least one month to go but local authorities are considering opening the schools again only in September.

Cheesemaking is a little slow here. My raw milk supplier is just a few minutes away but in another town. Since Monday there is a new decree requiring people to not leave their towns so my plans for huge batches of Camembert will have to wait. I can buy pasteurized milk from the local supermarket though, so I’ve been making my own yogurt and frescal cheese, a Brazilian recipe that brings me closer to my home country. But I am also worried about the local farmers. Within the next days I will try to find out if they are fine and if they are being able to sell their products.

I work at a software company and I had scheduled a cheesemaking workshop with my colleagues. I was very excited to teach them to make frescal. It was going to be their first cheesemaking experience but we had to postpone everything.

We live in a very beautiful city, full of joy and cute elderly people greeting each other and being nice to neighbors. But now everyone looks a little sad and worried. Spring is blossoming and now, even with some extra time to appreciate it, things feel odd. But the universal feeling here is that we are all together for something bigger. It’s a huge sacrifice but it’s something that needs to be done to protect the more vulnerable. Cheese can wait.

Karen Hartmann in Cambodia

Karen Hartmann in Battambang, Cambodia

At the moment, we are in Germany looking after my husband’s parents who are now in a senior home and are not adjusting very well. We came
to see if we can help them get used to their new surroundings.

Under the circumstances all my cheese making projects are on hold until the time that we can return to Cambodia. So sorry that I am not able to pursue this at the moment.

The atmosphere here in Germany is very upbeat and positive. Everyone seems to be following directions and basically looking out not only for themselves but others also. It’s quite comforting to experience. We shop wearing gloves and homemade masks (by me, quite nice if I may say so).

I’m used to cleaning and disinfecting everything that I bring home even before taking it out of the packaging.

John_M in Thailand

Making Cheese in Thailand (2012)

Since just before the COVID-19 hit, I started making ricotta cheese with milk and citric acid that I had here in Thailand. The citric acid I originally bought a few years back to make an Alka-Seltzer knockoff, but I then bought a new supply at a chemical supply shop and also glycerin/glycol to mix with 70% alcohol for hand-sanitizer.

I use the ricotta cheese to make cheese-potato blintzes using frozen spring roll wrappers and mix with flour and eggs to make ricotta cheese gnocchi. Any cheese left I use on a pizza using frozen roti dough.

Very simple these days without rennet or cultures.

I am in the rural NorthEast ‘Isaan’ Thailand so very few local COVID-19 cases and keeping a big ‘social distance’ is not a problem. Nor is going out in the morning for food or any other necessities but I am well-stocked.

Imran Saleh in Pakistan

Making Cheese in Pakistan (2013), Making “Dry” Mozzarella in Pakistan (2013), Teaching a Workshop in Pakistan (2013), Changing the Culture of Pakistan (2015), Imran Saleh – Expanding Again in Pakistan (2017), Imran Saleh – An Update (2019)

The pandemic has hit the entire world. Pakistan is also facing the consequences. We have been in lock down for the last 3 weeks and Pakistan has managed to keep the death toll relatively low.

3 weeks back, when the lock down was starting, many workers who live in distant villages left us and of course I didn’t asked them to stay. It was their right to stay at home. I was left with only 9 staff members.

The food industry is exempted from lock down but with tough measures:

In production, we are only 5 people instead of 15. Besides them, 1 driver and 1 supervisor, 1 in the office to handle accounts and 1 food safety officer. She mostly handles her job from home, being online with us.

We do temperature and physical checks every morning. Excess use of double masks, gloves , sanitizers and disinfectant are carried out regularly. We marked the floor for social distances and the whole factory is sprayed with disinfectant daily.

Almost all the restaurants are closed, and we cannot deliver to other cities either. But, since we were selling in retail markets, (30 super stores in Lahore), that has kept us going.

We have a huge storage of mature cheeses and fresh cheese is produced only twice/week. Retail is giving a good response. I am trying to keep all the employees in the loop – even those who left us. We are sending them remittances. Once we are out of it, they will join us again but until then, we have to take responsibility for their rations and food.

I am back in action, making cheese, packing, mopping and everything with my team. As long as we are in the cheese factory, we are not in fear of coronavirus. We all just go back home and in the morning back to work. Fear has two meanings – Forget everything and run, or, Face everything and rise. I chose the second option.

I am also aiming to start a new huge factory as soon as I get a chance. All this keeps me busy and I am left with only a few hours to face my better half, which of course is more fearful of the situation (but here I choose the option of forgetting everything).

You take care and I pray for all of the team at New England Cheesemaking to stay safe and for the entire world to get back to normal soon.

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To read the second part of this series – https://blog.cheesemaking.com/cheesemakers-sharing-about-the-pandemic-a-series-2/