It’s amazing how much warmth a person can portray with their eyes only!
I loved this interview! Matthew McMahon is a “force of nature” with unlimited energy and big plans for the future. He seems to have a rare combination of people skills, practical knowledge and the willingness to work hard. Spending time with him was an absolute pleasure.
That’s Matthew coming down the driveway to greet me.
Matthew is the farm manager at Gould Farm, a residential treatment community in the southwest corner of Massachusetts. It’s dedicated to helping adults with mental health challenges. It was founded by Will and Agnes Gould in 1913, making it the oldest treatment center of it’s kind in the US.
There are a lot of buildings on the 700 acre farm.
This is the dairy barn where the make room and cave are located.
They haven’t had a single case of Covid on the farm and they are determined to keep it that way. I was asked to scan my vaccination card and email it to Matthew in advance of my visit.
Guests stay there typically for 9-12 months. While there, they choose whichever aspects of the farm they want to learn about and participate in. While I was interviewing Matthew, he was teaching a guest to make cheese.
The guest was learning to use a harp to cut the curds. (She opted to not have her picture taken.)
Matthew is originally from Richmond, MA, about 30 miles northwest of the farm, on the NY border. Before he came to the farm 3 years ago, he worked at farmstead cheese creameries and mental well-being communities. The creameries include Hawthorn Valley Farm in Ghent, NY where he learned from Peter Kindel, Round Mountain Creamery in Black Mountain, NC and Cricket Creek Farm in Williamstown, MA.
Once a week, he makes cheese with the milk from 6-8 cows.
As you can see, there are several breeds in their herd – Guernseys, Jerseys, Dutch Belted and one Holstein.
The farm team is working on crossing Jerseys with Guernseys (genetically similar) in hopes of getting a gentler version of Jerseys. (As you can imagine, the cows are milked by different people all the time, so gentleness is important and Jerseys can sometimes be a bit tempermental.)
The milking parlor.
He describes the farm as a micro-dairy. At peak production, he gets 150 gallons of milk/week.
The new 112 gallon bulk milk tank from Greece.
That’s more than the farm can use, so they make yogurt, ice cream, Neufchatel, fromage blanc, quark and cheddar. They sell it at their farm store, which is more like a diner and at restaurants and grocers in the area. (They are in the process of raising funds to renovate the farm store so it is temporarily closed.)
They are also in the process of renovating their make room.
A new vat is on the way from Holland.
The press is custom made.
The weighing area.
Traditionally, they have always made cheddar at the farm.
There is quite a lot of it in their cave.
But, Matthew is hoping to move in a new direction with their cheese. He is working on a cheese he calls Agnes, after the founder of the farm. Agnes is smaller (5 lbs) and is pressed in a basket mold.
He’s still experimenting but, so far, it slices and melts better than their cheddar.
Checking the pH. The yellow bits of butter are fat globules, whipped into butter during the process of moving the milk.
The pH meter is synced to this IPad.
Agnes can be aged for 2 months but it’s more interesting after 4 months. Basically, Matthew is working at capturing the terroir of the farm.
The creamery workers keep records as they experiment.
His hope is that once he has the recipe secured, anyone on the farm can make the cheese. He explained to me that his emphasis will always be on the social interactions at the farm rather than the efficiency and profitability of the cheese.
In other words, the cheese will be made and eaten, but Matthew’s work as a guide through the process is much more important.
Gould Farm
100 Gould Rd.
PO Box 157
Monterey, MA 01245
(413) 327-9670
Website – https://www.gouldfarm.org/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/GouldFarm
