Gazé Farm

"My mother-in-law was known for the art of making cheese," explains Maria dos Anjos, as she removes the white cotton cloths from the clothesline. She dons her immaculately white uniform and puts on her clogs to enter a small production room built 30 years ago. "In the old days, I used to leave cheeses resting in the cupboards after making them in the kitchen."

It's ten in the morning, but at Quinta da Gazé, in Vila Franca da Beira, five minutes from Oliveira do Hospital, work has already begun before the sun rises, with the milking of the more than 70 sheep, "most of them are Bordaleira breed from Serra da Estrela, but I have some Churras Mondegueiras," she explains, "but I only make cheese with my milk. There are a lot of cheesemakers buying milk, even from Spain, and they are certified. My cheese is certified by me and my ethics."

It takes a morning to make around six pieces of cheese, from 18 to 25 litres of milk, depending on the month. In September, the sheep produce more milk, but as summer approaches, the quantity decreases. During the summer, the females become pregnant and rest until August. In September, the cycle begins again.

When you enter the annexe, the smell of the primal cure is confused with the dullness of the fireplace. Maria dos Anjos removes a few stumps from the pile of wood to feed the fire, and carefully unwraps the wool blanket that surrounds the milk jug, where the milk milked that morning has already been curdling for 40 minutes. "There are some cardoons here, but they're not enough. I buy this Alentejo thistle from Rogério at the market. I put it in the oven and then grind it in a coffee grinder so that it's always hard, otherwise it gets soggy." For every litre of milk, Maria dos Anjos adds a spoonful of salt from the salt pans of Figueira da Foz. While she waits for the curds to set, she trims the edges of the previous day's cheeses, which have been resting on the bench, pressed under granite stones.

After passing the curdled milk through the cotton cloths, Maria dos Anjos positions herself to the curd cutter, where she begins to divide the curds into moulds, squeezing them one by one in a delicate, choreographed movement, accompanied by the sound of the whey dripping into the bowl.

At this point, Mariana, the youngest daughter, shows up to help. Water is added to the whey and heated on the gas burner until small clouds of rennet form the fresh curd cheese (€2/piece). The last liquid from the cooking process, "we give to the sheep, but many people like to make tigelada (Portuguese traditional dessert)".

From the production room to the final cheese takes 35 days, three maturing rooms and three or four washes. In the first room, the cheese releases a fermentation gum "that expels what doesn't belong to it". When they begin to wilt, Maria dos Anjos puts the cotton belt on them, which helps to give them shape, and at the end of the various ripening rooms, they return to the fireplace to gain rind. "Cheese loves to be warm, likes wood and to be cosy. When we built this outbuilding, my cheese would get lukewarm because the walls hadn't absorbed it yet, they needed to cover the fermentation," she recalls. On dry, windy days, Maria dos Anjos moves them from the rooms to near the stove to absorb the vapours from the curd boiling. It's details like this, the fruit of decades of close relationships with cheese, that make this product unique.

She only sells to private individuals and neighbours, because her production is small - only 12 cheeses a day - but also because she can't relate with the values of most cheese sellers in the outlying markets. Her cheese is creamy, but not buttery, the smell is subtle, and each one weighs more than 800 grams (19€/kilo), thanks to the high-fat ratio guaranteed by the milk from her sheep. 

Around midday, Maria dos Anjos washes each cotton cloth with water, a brush, and a knife, then puts them in the sun. She repeats the same process after the evening milking. Producing this artisan cheese requires dedication: "We cannot take breaks, as we do not have weekends or vacations. The work is extremely arduous."