Its cheese season, I guess! Cows have plenty of green pasture and produce more milk during summer time…that’s what I’m told. I have little or no knowledge of farming. I just remember wonderful days at our cousins’ house, running in the fields, riding on the tractors with Arthur, hayrides, “helping” Jill or Julie in the milk house, staring unbelievably at the gallons and gallons of creamy milk, and even peeking (choking and vomiting) out back where the manure was collected.
Oscar’s niece’s farm in San Pedro is no where near Arthur’s, and Arthur’s milk farm was not even that updated. So, you can imagine how Maria milks her cows…by hand, yes, all nine cows by hand! She gets about 10 gallons of milk per day. That’s 4 kilos. (around 8,8 lbs.) of cheese each day. They live deep in the farming area of San Pedro. There is just a 30 km dirt road to get there and she doesn’t have a vehicle…just a horse and buggy. Houses are scarce and there is public transportation once a day…coming from or going to San Pedro.
It’s hard to get the milk or cheese to the market. So, Maria decided to make homemade Farmer’s Cheese since they couldn’t drink or sell all the milk produced each day. The next problem was that people in San Pedro would only buy the cheese for 6000 Gs. a kilo ($0.65 a lb.) while here in Asuncion, Farmer’s Cheese sells for 20,000 Gs. a kilo ($2.17 a lb.). (Farmer’s cheese tastes like sour milk cheese. There are no chemicals added to it, but it must be very high in calories because it has all the cream in it.)
So, now we are in the Cheese business. We are selling Maria’s cheese for 15,000 Gs. a kilo ($1.63 a lb.) and she is making double what she could sell it for up in San Pedro. Once a week she sends us a huge Rubbermaid bin full of Farmer’s cheese (60-80 lbs). She always says, “Oscar, tell Karen to keep 5 lbs.” What do I do with 5 lbs of cheese a week?...Tortilla (Paraguayan style...fried batter with cheese), Chipa Guazu, Chipa, Sopa Paraguaya, Guisos, Soups, Pizza, and give it away…
7 comments:
Sounds good to me! Send some up w/the team when they come home! :)
After reading Linda's blog, maybe you could supply some to their farm market as Imported Farmers Cheese from PY.
Grandpa always talked about "Farmers cheese" and loved when we brought some cheeses home from Kitchener's Farmers' Market for him. He'd always say "that is the best cheese." and then continue on with his memories of the good old days.
The cheese in South America is different than anything you can get in North America, even when it is called the same thing. Just like some of the vegetables (and, of course, the beef) the cheeses are best eaten, well, there. I'm getting hungry...
I also recommend LindaSue's Farm market. It could go right along with the peppercorns from Guatamaula!
How about some Mac. and Cheese, Lasanga, noodle pleaser, etc.? Enjoy it while you can. (Feed it to your work team.) Gram. Toth loves it.
Build a smokehouse and go into the gourmet cheese business? Triple the price?
Hey karen, I made a really good batch of Chipa a few weeks ago, and I've made mbeyu a couple of times. My secret ingredient? Instead of trying to find something similar to paraguayan cheese, I do it the REAl paraguayan way and use whatever I have that's cheap! So it's been tillamook extra sharp cheddar, and I even put in cayenne!
What I would do to get some of that cheese...
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