Appetites: Cheeses from Capra Nera Creamery
Growler Magazine's food editor James Norton shares the story of Katie Bonow of Capra Nera Creamery in Altura, Minnesota, and the growing cheesemaker community in the state.
Tom Crann: You've got a story in the Growler that warms the heart of anyone who is not lactose intolerant. We need to be lactose tolerant for this. So tell us about this recent trip down to southeastern Minnesota.
James Norton: so I went down to Forager Brewing in Rochester for some charcuterie and cheese and then traveled on to Altura to meet the cheese maker, Katie Bonow of Capra Nera Creamery.
Crann: Now she's fairly new to cheese making. Tell us more. How does someone get into that and how did she come about?
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Norton: Her story is pretty great. She's young. She's only 29. And while she went to school for Italian Studies at the University of Minnesota she had a lifelong connection to farming and goats that called her back to the countryside.
She won her first goat through a 4H essay contest when she was 12 years old and she's just kind of kept going with it.
So now she's raising a young son with her husband on a small farm and tending to a herd of more than 50 goats. She milks every day and then she makes specialty cheese three times a week.
Crann:Tell us about the cheeses of Capra Nera Creamery.
Norton: Yes we tried three cheeses while we were in Altura and like them all. Capra Nera's flagship cheese is made from raw goat's milk age for at least six months it's called Contadina. It's fairly firm and dry and resembles a sort of a Parmigiano Reggiano crossed with an aged cheddar I might say in terms of texture.
Crann: Sounds like a good combo.
Norton: It's a good combo and it actually varies quite a bit because of the seasonality of the milk and just the make process and the piece we tried at Forger Brewing was actually strikingly close to a Spanish manchego which happens to be one of my favorite cheeses.
The other main cheese she's making is called chicho. That's an Italian nickname that translates to chubby and it's a little chubby wheel of cheese it's raw milk cheese aged up to 60 days. It's tender enough to be spreadable firm enough to slice and it's got a silky texture earthy nutty fullness of flavor. It's perfect on a baguette.
Crann: So do you actually have to go there to the farm to get it?
Norton: Well there's no tours or shop there so don't do that. Instead, you should go to Lunds or Kowalski's. It tends to be about 25 dollars a pound which is on par with or even a bit less expensive than its most direct competitors. There's not a lot of handcrafted farmstead cheese out there and it's really precious stuff.
Crann: Katie Bonow isn't the only Minnesota woman making cheese on farmstead operations like this one, right?
Norton: There are two other really good makers that come to mind but this list is not exhaustive. There are others out there.
Since 2013 Redhead Creamery has been putting out some great cheeses including a clothbound cheddar and Brie on their farm in Brewton, Minnesota. It's a great story. Alise Sjostrom and her husband Lucas are making cheese on a dairy farm that belongs to her parents and Alise is the redhead in question so if you're ever at a cheese show, she's pretty easy to pick out of the crowd.
And then for 20 years Jodie Olsen Reed and her husband Steven have been making sheep's milk cheese at Shepherd's Way farm in Nerstrand and they're making some of the best Asiago and blue cheese style cheeses around.
And when I talked to Katie at Capra Nera she said Jodi has been a real inspiration and a mentor. So it's really kind of cool to see the Minnesota cheese community knitting together and embracing new generations.
Listen to the full interview with the audioplayer above.