Curds and whey the time-honoured way
There's something cheesy happening in the suburb of St Kilda. The kitchens of Il Fornaio come alive in the evenings as sisters Sabrina and Katia Cappodocio bring decades of cheesemaking experience to the Acland Street eatery. Just around the corner and a couple of blocks up Fitzroy Street, Laura Lown, cheesemonger at new licensed fromagerie Milk the Cow, imports a wealth of knowledge accrued in London, along with more than 100 of the world's finest cheeses.
Milk the Cow: Daniel Verheyen and Laura Lown, cheesemonger at the St Kilda fromagerie.
When her sister moved to Melbourne, Lown followed for a holiday, and the cheesemonger job at Milk the Cow presented itself as an ideal opportunity. The extensive range, from local highlights to cheeses from across Europe and the US, is less about bamboozling customers and more about opening their minds. ''I absolutely love challenging preconceptions,'' she says. ''I had a woman in the other night who said she hated goat's milk with a passion. I said, 'Hate's a strong word,' and asked what she didn't like about it.''
When the woman replied that goat's cheese was too sour, and she disliked the texture, Lown gave her a taste of Midnight Moon, a semi-hard variety from the Netherlands, aged for four to six months. ''It's really milky and sweet. Next thing I knew she was ordering a big wedge.'' Her favourite cheese is Ossau-iraty, a French hard sheep's milk hailing from the Pyrenees. ''It's really buttery with subtle notes of caramel running through it.''
She also loves the award-winning Pyengana cheddar by Tasmanian John Healey, which uses a 100-year-old recipe and is cloth-bound to keep in the moisture.
Sister act: Il Fornaio's cheesemaking sisters Sabrina and Katia Cappodocio.
Milk the Cow offers an original twist on predictable cheeseboard offerings. Their constantly rotating flights come with a wine accompaniment or, for the more adventurous, a beer or spirit pairing. ''A lot of cheese connoisseurs say cheese and beer goes more so than cheese and wine,'' Lown says.
A recent team-up matched the chocolatey Sierra Nevada Stout with a pungent, rind-washed Fermier produced in Timboon. A peaty whisky offers the same opportunity.
Il Fornaio brought the Cappodocio sisters - originally from Fossanova, roughly halfway between Naples and Rome - to Melbourne after co-owner Luca Calcaterra stopped by the roadside to buy buffalo mozzarella while holidaying in Italy.
They hit it off instantly, and now the pair spend about 10 hours a day, five days a week, handcrafting artisan cheese using both buffalo and cow's milk. Their fare includes lightly sweet, creamy ricotta, a smooth and firm scamorza and tangy stracchino.
Working tirelessly using traditional methods, they knead, pleat and pull naturally fermented curd by hand. The results are laid out in glass cabinets in the cafe. Their grandfather opened their region's first buffalo mozzarella factory in the 1960s, and it was on the floor that their mother and father first met.
While the sisters, like Lown, flirted with other careers, namely architecture and photography, they came back to the fold when their ageing father needed help. When he died, they continued the family tradition.
The time-honoured methods are tough on their hands, but Sabrina says the steaming milk does have its plus points, too, helping to keep their complexion radiant.
''I'm 40,'' she says, pointing at the distinct lack of wrinkles on her smiling face.
But there's more at work here than just the skincare benefits.
''It's all about passion,'' Katia says. ''The milk is alive.''
Source: Good Food, 16 April 2013
