Farm to Farmers’ Market
A Story of One Cheese
Story and Photos By Jane Faust Dane

If you’ve ever stood in line at a farmers’ market and thanked cheese maker Louella Hill for her efforts in bringing you the pure white round of tangy, buttery satisfaction that is Narragansett Creamery’s mozzarella, then there’s someone else we encourage you to thank too.  That would be Doris, a resident of Cranston, a middle-aged gal with good breeding whose daily output results in the cheese you’re appreciating.  Doris is a Jersey cow, one of 23 cows with sweet lady names who are milked by Anthony DiMuccio at Cloverdale Farms.  In Rhode Island, we’re used to things being on a small scale but even so, just how small and how local the path from farm to table is, how near from cow to kitchen it can be, just might surprise you.

Farm Sweet Farm

Those of us who uncomfortably recall Michael Pollan’s New York Times Magazine cover article featuring feedlot cow #534 might be relieved to know that places like Cloverdale still (barely) exist. The barn’s a little beat up, as befits a 61-year-old family farm, but the cows seem pretty unconcerned. They roam around inside the barn, as they desire, or out on the pasture, which they share with their calves, a bull named Jerry and two Longhorns, who are there for novelty’s sake.  The first milking begins at around 6:15 a.m., when Tony guides four cows at a time into a raised concrete pen where the suction-operated milking machines are located. Each cow stands placidly for about 10 minutes while jets of milk are whooshed over to a 500 gallon stainless steel tank in a neighboring room.

Over the whirring of the pumps, Tony talks about his day. “I’m tired from the moment I get up until the moment I get in bed. But my father did it, and I do it too. I’ve been doing it from day one.” Cloverdale, which once sprawled across 200 acres, is now down to about 75. It is, according to Tony, the last active dairy farm in Cranston.  After milking, Tony feeds the cows, fixes fences and does “whatever needs to get done.” The second milking is at about 5:30 p.m. and Tony often doesn’t leave the farm until about 10 p.m.  By day’s end he’s typically taken around 70 gallons of the cows’ extra creamy milk.

“This breed gives about the richest milk, except for maybe a yak,” says Tony. “You let this milk sit and you can see the cream. It’s like half & half.”

Tony does it all naturally, too, without the use of hormones or antibiotics.  “I don’t believe in that stuff,” he says. “I don’t even take aspirin, so I’m not going to do that to [the cows]. I’ve seen cows on that stuff, and I don’t want to drink that milk. Their calves are all deformed. Look at my calves, there’s nothing wrong with them.” Indeed, there is nothing wrong with his calves, and like all the cows at Cloverdale, they are astonishingly friendly. Doris, Janet, Lil’ Darling, Nancy, Ruby and the others follow Tony around like paparazzi follow Gisele, each one looking not just for food but for the neck scratches they know he’s quick to offer them.

The Creamery: Where the Magic Happens

Every other day, Barry James Jr., a dairy farmer who drives for Tomaquag Valley Milk Transportation, arrives to transfer the milk from Cloverdale and other farms to the Olneyville headquarters of Narragansett Creamery and its partner company, Providence Specialty Products. Narragansett Creamery receives milk daily from multiple farms, and typically begins cheese making within hours of its arrival, although it can stay fresh in the onsite temperature-controlled silo for up to three days.

While Holstein cows are the industry standard, Louella and the others at Narragansett Creamery are delighted when they receive Jersey milk. In particular it is reserved for their delicious Italian-style Atwell’s Gold and Divine Providence gouda, which benefit from the higher butterfat content of that milk.

But because the milk can mingle with milks from other farms, Doris’s milk can find its way into any of the company’s cheeses, including the praise-worthy mozzarella.

While you can find a few styles of mozzarella available under the Narragansett Creamery imprint, including the little balls of ciliegine and the more common baseball-sized mounds called fior di latte, they are working on a special hand-stretched variety, which is not technically mozzarella but a Latin American relative called queso oaxaceno.  This particular cheese, with origins in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, is produced in a fashion similar to the Italian mozzarella, and would be as comfortable in a quesadilla as on a pizza. It is, according to Louella, “known for a drier body and fresh, simple milky flavor.” To create its renowned stringy texture, the cheese makers follow a three-step finishing process.

First the block of cheese is cut into ribbons, each about ¼-inch wide and several inches long. These strips are placed in water heated to 180 degrees and allowed to sit for a few minutes to soften. Then, usually with double latex gloves, the cheese maker reaches in to gently knead the strips into more malleable, elastic pieces.The pieces are joined together into a rope, which is stretched and formed both in and out of the water.

When the cheese maker is satisfied that it has reached optimal texture, the cheese is then wound into a braid and dropped into cool water to arrest the softening process and hold the shape. Finally, the now ornately braided cheese is placed in a brining solution where it absorbs saltiness into its core and outer skin.

To market, to market

At this point, this fresh, mild braid of cheese has followed an arc of only about 8.2 miles, from Doris’s dim barn to the fluorescent-lit production floor of Narragansett Creamery. Along the way, it has been coaxed, transferred, processed and ultimately hand-stretched by fewer than six people. It could scarcely be more local or more thoughtfully produced.

When it reaches you, at your neighborhood farmers’ market, remember you are the last link in this intimate chain. Savor your cheese, and if you remember, tip your cap not just to Louella but also to Doris, another Rhode Islander doing her part to provide us with a most satisfying and truly local food

Jan Faust Dane promotes local and independent retailers and restaurants through the eat.shop guides. Visit your local bookstore for the new edition of eat.shop New England.