I've always wanted to....

Be a cheesemaker's apprentice

I’m learning to make cheese….in Spanish and very quickly it becomes apparent that I might have over estimated my Spanish language skills. I understand Spanish, the kind of Spanish that is spoken slowly and with no major contractions or slang words. But in this factory there are a world of Spanish language dialects some of which don’t even sound like Spanish. Juliana, for example, a cheese maker for over 25 years is from El Salvador and speaks a dialect that even the women from Mexico don’t understand half the time. Speaking or understanding without knowledge of cheese making vocabulary is also hard. So saying something as simple as “pass the colander” becomes very complex.

Cheesemaking is hard, physically hard and these cheesemakers have endurance and grit. I begin to understand the difference between laboring with your hands or at a desk. Sitting at a desk all day staring at a computer screen and making phone calls is a world apart from standing on your feet for 8 hours or more every day in un-supportive galoshes using your hands and at times your whole body in the process of turning curd into cheese. At the end of each day I ache in places I had never ached before and my respect for this profession and the product that results grows deeper.

There’s a camaraderie that takes place amongst the warm cheese curds and at the table while forming mozzarella balls. In the back ground the radio is playing a Spanish station and a song I now know nearly all the words to, “Sabes que me gustas tanto?” We swing our hips back and forth as we all gather around the table and wait for the next batch of mozzarella to be ready for shaping. One of the women giggles as I join in the dancing, “Rebecca, Te gustas bailar?”

I’m told that each person has their own cheese signature, the way you squeeze the mozzarella up through your hands and pinch it off- the closure is different for each person. Right now I call mine “wonky” it’s something of a mix between lumpy and awkward. I also make one ball in the same time the other women make three. I feel clumsy and slow and when I try to form a mozzarella ball most of the women sigh and say “ ah Rebecca que paso?” I mean these women are fast. Most of them have been making cheese for 25 years and have an amazing work ethic. You can’t be shy; when they throw down a big mass of fresh mozzarella you gotta step up to the bowl and tear off a piece and start making your ball.

Once formed, each ball is hurled across the room into a tub full of water, or the “salemolla” as they call it, which is a mixture of acid, water and salt. These women never miss either, they just sling those balls across the room like it’s nothing one right after the other. Splash, splash, splash. It’s amazing that they don’t collide mid-air. I didn’t want to be the looser “gringo” new girl that walked her ball over and dropped it into the tub, so I took a deep breath, said a silent “here goes” and made my best imitation of a baseball pitch. Splash went my ball into the tub as I said a silent “Thank God” and reached for another mass of mozzarella. I smiled and looked at everyone very pleased with myself at my big accomplishment but no one seemed to acknowledge this as any great feat. For the experienced cheese maker hurling mozzarella balls is second nature but for me I’m like yes! I made a ball, Yes! The ball made it into the water vat. Yes! I measured the salt, water, and acid ratio correctly for the Salemolla. Yes! It’s the small things that count.

One day the mozzarella balls were so fat that I had the hardest time stuffing them in their little plastic packets for vacuum packing. Another day I labeled several sheet pans full of packaged mozzarella with the wrong packing date and incurred the wrath of the head cheesemaker, as I slowed things down by having to start all over and re-package them. Another day, we made Queso Oaxaca, long ribbons of mozzarella cheese sprinkled with salt and fresh lime juice and rolled up like a ball of yarn. I actually cut the limes the wrong way. I didn’t even know there was a wrong way to cut a lime. In the wake of this new realm of cheesemaking what I think I know has lost its equilibrium as I realize I really don’t know anything about anything. Accepting this discomfort and living in it gives way to new insights.

There’s a pride and a sense of humor that is tangible in this factory. Many of these women have been here for 25 years or more and I often feel like some kind of interloper, just a gringo passing through. Many of them don’t know why I’m here in this factory instead of in an office somewhere as some would say I belong or am privileged to be and indeed sometimes I’m not so sure why I’m here either as I begin to doubt my own convictions.

I screw up a lot- measure the salt wrong, re-do it, try to keep up their pace but inevitably fall behind, feeling like I Love Lucy on the chocolate assembly line, I simply can’t keep pace. But there are moments like when I’m scooping warm ricotta curds light as a cloud into plastic baskets to drain, or chatting with the goats milk purveyor about his milk, or when one of the women smiles at me in mutual annoyance at the head cheesemaker, or when I finally make headway with my Spanish and can even joke in Spanish, or when I’m invited to share tortillas and carne with the mujeres, my fellow women, my fellow cheesemakers and we laugh. It’s moments such as these that make me remember the essence of what life is all about. These women taught me that. Life is not a life worth living unless you can laugh out loud, have a sense of humor, make friends, and take pride in what you do, whatever that may be- do it well and with care.