The Way of Curds and Whey When a Catskill Family Farms

HARPERSFIELD — Hank's grandfather, Russ is cutting the curds the old fashion way, with a curd harp, a large square metal frame strung with wire that cuts the curds in precise chunks. From his playpen, young Hank can see every stage of the work being carried out by his grandfather and his mother, Rachel. Russ' parents Corrine and Ron Brovetto began this business which will put a curd harp in Hank's hands, most likely one day.

It is a difficult job, today, not competing with, but surviving in the face of the huge corporate farms, when you are a small family farm in the Catskills. The Brovettos are not trying to compete. So, they are not making cheddar, they are making Tilsit. It is a semi hard artisan cheese made by hand. They make relatively small amounts next to the huge industrial farms. But frankly, I think you can taste the care and tradition in the product of their work.  

They designed and built the building where they make their cheese specifically for Tilsit. They needed to age the cheese in a cave, so they dug into the hillside and built the plant around the cave they created 26 years ago. This is true Catskill cheese. The 80% humidity in the cave where it is aged is almost always provided by the temperature of the mountain earth itself. There is a small air conditioning unit for the few days of the year when our short summer season hits 90. In midwinter the temperature in the cave may drop a bit when it is below 20 outside. But for most of the year, it is our mountain environment and the land which provides the perfect temperature and humidity for great cheese.

There are machines which cut the curds, but they are not found on the Brovetto Farm.  The economy is a matter of constant care when keeping the family farm going to provide a life for their four generations, and their small herd of bovine coworkers.  Their cows are mostly fed on native orchard grass and clover with a minimum of purchased feed for an economically sound method of maintaining the herd. This is the taste of our mountains in a product that is the result of a lifestyle, not simply a commodity.

I'm in luck the day I dropped by. The milk truck did not arrive on its usual day. Milk that would have been sold raw had just been pasteurized at the plant and cheese was being made, to keep the milk from spoiling. I watch Russ pour rennet into the vat to begin the curdling of the milk. In the course of our talk the milk has separated into the solid curds and the liquid whey. I'm carried back to my childhood. Most weeks there would be a day when there would be a bag made of cheese cloth hanging from the kitchen faucet as my mother made cheese - Indian paneer. What always seemed to be some magic process where she turned raw milk into peas and paneer somehow, is clear as I watch Russ turn the milk into the first stages of what will be semi-solid cheese.

The family is lovingly tied to the land. They go out into the world for college and work, and some find lives outside the family's land. But a generational core come to work the farm. They do other work, but it does not get in the way of running the dairy.  Rachel Brovetto Collins married Sam Collins, of Buck Hill Farm fame. On that farm they have the well known "Buck Hill Breakfasts." Maple syrup is made and they have beef cows. This is what Sam does. Rachel's  work, however,  after obtaining a degree in terra production is working and is  managing a part of the Brovetto family business. 

There are a host of challenges for the small Catskill farm. The production of the land isn't a constant and the farmer has to plan for drought or flood, heat wave or cold snap. And here especially... bears. In another story, I mention that three states dump bears on us, as we are "underpopulated" with humans, not bears however.  The state governments think of the land as being underpopulated simply by counting the density of people. They ignore how those people use the land, and that production on the land is impacted by animals. Bears are a challenge for production on the land. Don't get me wrong, I love that we have bears, but I also understand when Rachel goes out to herd the cows and sees two bear cubs tumbling over the fields, her thought isn't "how cute."

Living things on the land are a challenge for communities to balance. Russ notes that hunting has changed over the fifty years that his family has been farming here. "People will come up here and buy one hundred acres and post it all off..." The new pattern of ownership     impacts on hunting, an important aspect of managing to make a living on the land here, and a likely subject of another article one day soon, no doubt.   Russ is thoughtful about it. It is about seeking a working balance. Living off the land means living with the land. He looks  at things in perspective. "The coyotes come for a while and move on." Everything in nature has its use and place.

They have some forty seven outlets which carry their cheese as well as their own farm store. To pick just a few, they are often our favorite spots to shop or stop and sip like Stamford Coffee or one of Genie and my favorite treat stops on Route 30, the Carrot Barn. But buying direct from the family is always a joy. On Saturdays at the Round Barn, Corrine, the family matriarch has been the model of hospitality, offering tastes of the many flavors of the family's fair to visitors and Catskill neighbors. You also can buy directly from the family at the Schoharie County Farmers Market in Cobleskill.