Meet Biddy, a 76-year-old award-winning Kiwi cheesemaker
Once a fine artist, Biddy Fraser-Davies became a cheesemaker at 60. This year she turns 76, and will celebrate her birthday at The Great Eketahuna Cheese Festival supported by her husband Colin, with whom she runs a unique tourism attraction in rural New Zealand.
Cheese and model trains seem an unlikely combination, but nestled amongst the rolling hills in the Wairarapa/ Tararua districts of New Zealand, is Middleton Model Railway and Cwmglyn Farmhouse Cheese.
The business is run by Biddy and Colin Fraser-Davies, a couple who both switched careers in their sixties, and are now considered guiding lights within their own professions.
The cheese maker
Biddy’s foray into cheesemaking came when she was 60 – after having moved from Wellington to Cwmglyn Farm at Mount Bruce, which is located between the North Island towns of Masterton and Eketahuna just off SH2. She had previously worked as a fine artist in the field of enamelling and alongside Colin, co-authored a book called The Enamellists’ Handbook which is now on display in their reception area.
“I taught myself how to hand-milk after being given a four-day calf I named Gwendolyn,” recalls Biddy. “When she grew up and had her own calf, she literally “swamped” me with milk – 26L a day – so I thought to myself, what else can I do with all this milk? Cheese seemed a great solution and gave me something new to focus on.”
Since establishing the Cwmglyn Farmhouse Cheese brand, Biddy has made 2767 “wheels” (or truckle as it is known in Britain) of a traditional English cheddar style cheese with a wholly natural rind that is matured for three to seven months. The “wheel” is made from between 20 – 45L of milk, which comes from her cows (who have lovely names like Dizzy, Patsy or Lily) that have been machine milked by her husband Colin, then stipped milked by Biddy after the milking cluster is removed. The cheese making process - from milk to insertion in the press - takes most of the day. The wheel then spends between 24 - 72 hours in a cheese press, before being air-dried for a couple of days to develop the rind, which is then painted with melted clarified butter (made from the cream of the same cows). It is then placed in storage where it is wiped and turned daily.
The result is a beautiful tasting, complex cheese that has earned Biddy several awards including a Super Gold at the 2014 World Cheese Awards which saw an entry field of 2,700 cheeses from 33 different countries.
Over the years Biddy has become an advocate for small scale cheesemakers after courting controversy in 2009 when she appeared on a New Zealand television show called Country Calendar. She says after the programme finished at 7.30pm, she received her first email from the Food Safety Authority at 7.31pm. Subsequently three inspectors visited her property.
“They admitted the cheese room was one of the cleanest they’d ever seen but said my paper work wasn’t up to scratch,” she recalls. “I don’t want to minimise the problems there would be if an invasion of pathogen material were to occur if you don’t do your job correctly, but there are two things to remember here. There is a big difference between making soft and hard cheese. And secondly scale. I make one or two batches of hard cheese, versus the 800 – 1000 cheeses in a Fonterra batch, but I still had to pay the same for testing procedures and for a risk management plan. To me, that seemed wrong, so I challenged it.”
In 2011, Biddy addressed a select committee and as a result MPI developed a Risk Management Template for Farm House Cheese designed to support small operators. This has enabled small businesses like Cwmglyn to survive but Biddy believes there is still a long way to go to grow a national culture that persists in producing and preserving traditional cheesemaking skills.
She believes her ability to “stand-up for the little person” comes from a variety of life experiences including being self-employed.
“Looking back, I think that’s why I’ve survived in these two careers – fine arts and now cheesemaking. I’ve always been self-employed and had to reply on myself to make it work. It helps that I’m also stubborn and articulate, especially when dealing with bureaucracy. In that regard I think it’s a shame that many people who could blossom, from a business point of view, don’t because they don’t have the self-esteem to cope or fight the system when required.”
On track With Colin
Right on the same site as Cwmglyn Cheese is Middleton Model Railway one of the largest model railways in New Zealand. The layout contains over 300m of track, over 227 points, 10 stations, a marshalling yard, a harbour with train ferry, an ironstone mine and a chalk quarry. Visitors can walk around and under the entire layout and view it through glass. Afterwards they can see purchase everything they need to build their own model railway.
Colin, a former data architect for TranzRail, spent months creating the model railway after the couple moved from Wellington to the district in 2003.
“Trains and model railways had always been a hobby and when we moved here I decided to grow my hobby and share it with others whilst also helping Biddy establish Cwmglyn Cheese,” he says. “It’s great for visitors as they can see this comprehensive display of railway models, take a turn operating the controls and little children can play with a smaller layout built just for them. Afterwards they can taste Biddy’s cheese and come away with a truly unique experience.”
The Great Eketahuna Cheese Festival
Both Biddy and Colin are involved in The Great Eketahuna Cheese Festival, a celebration of small artisan cheesemakers on Monday, 14th May in the Eketahuna Community Hall. The festival will bring together artisan cheesemakers from all over New Zealand selling their cheese to the public, chefs, trade, and industry leaders in the field of soil and agriculture as well as several guest speakers.
These include Nick Haddow, founder and managing director of Bruny Island Cheese Co (the first producer of Australian Raw Cheese); Craig Prichard, the associate professor of Massey School of Management; Doug Edmeades, a soil and agriculture scientist; Gabrielle Kervella, a goat cheese maker; Colleen Dennison who founded Evendale Cheese from Dunedin and John King, who will talk about sustainability in farming.
Also attending is Dr Paul Neaves, a UK dairy microbiologist and Gill Palmer, senior consultant & cheese auditor of Palmer and Randall – both of whom are on the technical committee of the UK Specialist Cheesemakers Association. In addition, Biddy and Calum Hodgson, an Auckland based cheesemonger for the fine food store Sabato, will give “light-hearted” talks about cheesemaking including discussing New Zealand’s regulatory requirements for producing raw milk cheese.
Afterwards they will all celebrate Biddy’s 76th birthday.
Details:
Middleton Model Railway and Cwmglyn Farmhouse Cheese
36 Morgans Rd
RD2 Eketahuna
Event:
The Great Eketahuna Cheese Festival
Monday, May 14, 2018
For full details, click here.