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Dairy Practices in Swiss Alps
Cheesemaking, Interior of small Dairy Facility, and Farmer's Home in Swiss Alps, Table of Contents. Photo credits: Martha Pickard and Andrew Garde
by Martha Pickard
Berghotel Obersteinberg, Switzerland, August 3, 2006 - This morning broke wet and cold. There is no electricity on the Alp and the window to our hostel is steamed up from 18 weary travelers. I fumble for my watch in the early morning light, most people are asleep, watching cows get milked is not that exciting to them. Three of us are awake and ready to brave the weather, though. As we step outside I can hear the thunder of water from across the valley but the magnificent glacier that rose above us yesterday is lost in the clouds.
Yesterday we hiked from Lauterbrunnen Valley to the Obersteinberg Hotel. The hike was supposed to take 2 ˝ hours but this is the end of our two-week whirlwind tour of Switzerland and we have a few wounded that needed some help up the mountain. We are studying the Swiss traditional diet and following the footsteps of Weston A. Price, a dentist who studied traditional peoples and their diets during the 1930’s.
It is early August and the cows are grazing on the high pasture (2020 m, 6060ft) - a dance between the cows and the grass of eating and resting that has gone on for almost a thousand years on the Alp. There are 15 cows in this herd - tall, hardy Simmental cows. We did not see them yesterday but were able to hear their bells clanging as they grazed above us.
The three of us slosh up through the mud to the high pasture. Steam rolls off the cows as we huddle in the small, cramped barn. The farmers are embarrassed; this is not where they normally milk the cows. Usually, the cows are milked in the parlor off the cheese making facility when they are grazing on the low and middle pastures in June to July and returned in mid August to mid September. Cows graze on these Alps for about 100 days from June to September. A good Alpine pasture will have over 35 different plants in it while in the lowlands you will only find about 12 different plants. Through scientific studies researchers have found a significant difference in the nutrient quality of the milk being made by the cows grazing on the alpine pastures especially the higher omega–3 fatty acids and vitamin E content. (1)
The Trieb is celebrated in late May every year when the cows are driven to the Alpine pastures. Drovers will dress in the traditional Kuhier short jackets and women will wear floral gowns. The Alpine herdsmen culture is like no other. Fiercely independent, these people have always been free from feudal servitude and lived in a structured communities dictated by the geography of the Alpine valleys. Traditionally, the whole village would move to the higher pastures and stay with the cows during the summer.(2) Nowadays, herdsmen and cheese makers are hired to stay with cows while the farmers stay near the village.
Back in Obersteinberg, the cows lounge in the small barn with their tails tied up with twine to the ceiling. They are milked one by one with a small one cow vacuum milker hooked to a generator outside. There is barely room for all of us and we do an awkward dance with the husband and wife who are milking, answering our questions and trying to move as quickly as possible on this chilly morning. The wife’s name is Vicki and she is an American raised in Pennsylvania who married a Swiss man. Alpine life is arduous and the cycles repetitive. Milking cows allows her to live in this place she loves, photography, she says, is her sanity.
Vicki sits on a one legged stool tied around her waste and strokes the cows side that she is milking. She tells us this cow is the most gentle in the herd and one of the best milkers. Vicki is perplexed by our interest. Why did we wake up at 6am and slog uphill through the muddy pasture to see some cows being milked in an old, cramped out building? This way of cheese making is the old way, she states. There is nothing flashy or modern about it and people are not interested in the old ways anymore. In later conversations we found out that other visitors had criticized Vicki and her husband for making cheese in such rustic conditions. It explained their hesitancy and bewilderment at the group of North Americans fascinated with their daily life.
As the last of the milk is poured into the milk jugs and loaded on the small wagon pulled by a tractor the size of an ATV, we hike down to watch the cheese making. As in many mountain communities, the Swiss Alps dwellers have limited economic opportunities. Historically, pasture was the only viable use for the land high in the Alps but fluid milk is a perishable and not easily transported. Cheese making evolved as an economic mainstay in these mountain communities. Cheese would be aged on the mountain and then packed out by mule in the fall before the snowfall. Today, Vicki admits that most of the cheese is transported out by helicopter. She was transported by helicopter last summer when she broke her leg - it was the only way off the mountain.
The room they make the cheese in is dark with stone walls and a low ceiling. Vicki cleans the milking equipment while her husband starts the cheese. The fire has already been built and the fresh milk, water and bacteria culture is poured into the cheese cauldron. The bacteria culture is what affects the taste of the cheese. The Swiss Federal Government Research Station produces 40 different cultures and controls the bacterial cultures for the most famous brands of Swiss cheese: Gruyere, Appenzelle and Emmantal. The Swiss people gave the government control of the bacteria cultures to protect them from private industry. These cultures may not be sold outside the country.
Raw milk cheeses like Gruyere, Appenzelle and Emmantal are an economic mainstay of Switzerland. Switzerland, France and Italy are the largest producers of raw milk cheese in Europe. Switzerland produced 100 million kilos of raw milk cheese in 1995. From 1990-92 the European Union debated the safety of raw milk cheese. Pasteurization for cheese makers is difficult, expensive and affects the taste of the cheese. Researchers at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (I.N.R.A.), Station de Recherches en Technologie et Analyses Laitieres in Pouligny, France studied the effects of pasteurization on the quality of raw milk cheeses and found that "pasteurization modifies the biochemistry and microbiology of ripening, and the flavor and texture of cheese." Instead of mandating pasteurization the EU decided to guarantee the safety of the cheese products through improved safety regulations that used microbiological risk assessment.(3)
The shiny copper cheese cauldron almost looks out of place in the dark room against the smoke smudged stone wall. Copper is found in most cheese cauldrons because of its antibacterial and heat conducting properties. After the milk/bacteria mixture is heated, the copper cauldron is swung out of the fire and left to stand for a half hour before the rennet is added. Rennet is an extract from a calf’s stomach that contains the enzyme rennin. Rennin aids in separating the curds from the whey. Historically, the Alp cheese makers would throw part of a calf’s stomach into some leftover whey and start a live active culture. Today they use commercially prepared rennet but the Swiss Cheesemakers Association has refused to use genetically engineered rennet.
The curd is separated from the whey through a series of heating and coolings where the cauldron is swung in and out of the fire and a cheese harp cuts the curds into small identical pieces. When the whey is separated Vicki hauls it out to the pigs.
When farmers began making cheese, according to a Swiss legend from the Appenzelle region, they called the whey "milk-water" and added it to the swill for pigs because they didn’t know what else to do with it. After feeding the pigs the whey they noticed that they grew healthy and fat. The farmers thought that if it worked for the pigs it should work for them too. Some of the family members began drinking the whey and taking baths in it and soon found that it cured some of their ailments and skin problems. An innkeeper in the village of Gais in the canton of Appenzelle noticed what the whey was doing for the farmers and began setting up bathtubs for the guests to take healing whey baths. Word spread quickly about the milk serum baths and people came from all over Europe to bath and drink Swiss milk serum, whey. Gais was a very popular health resort for all of Europe during the 1780-90s.
The traditional cheese makers of Switzerland did not view whey as a waste product. Many Swiss drank whey as a health tonic, due to its high mineral content helped digestion, lubricated joints and helped keep muscles young. Whey has a high concentration of lactic acid, which inactivates putrefying bacteria and makes it a good medium for preserving meats and vegetables. "Drink whey everyday and you’ll live forever", an Appenzeller Museum cheese maker told us.
Since the weather was lousy we decided to hike down early. Some of the group headed across the valley to a goat farm and on the way there they watched a small avalanche take out one of the cows on that farm. The number reason for bovine fatality on the Alps is falling of cliffs. This is an extreme place that will see more extreme changes in the years to come. Scientists warn that the Swiss Alps will no longer be covered by ice at the end of the century if glaciers continue to melt at the current rate. Glaciers this year lost up to four per cent of their mass, according to experts from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.(4) Despite modern day economic and ecological changes there is still a lot to learn from a country with over 1000 years experience in making world famous cheeses literally between a rock and a hard place.
Switzerland has a billion dollar industry in tourism. Summer tourists want to see cows grazing on green grass and hear the bells as they hike up to a beautiful glacier. Modern research shows that cows grazing on green grass produce a nutritionally superior dairy product.
In that the economic base of the Adirondack North Country Region is tourism and agriculture, there is real opportunity to develop agri-tourism to mirror the Swiss’s governmental and community support for ecologically sound farms, national pride in the quality of their products, and ingenuity to make world famous cheeses in mountainous and inaccessible areas.
Through the Swiss control of their bacterial cultures and name of their product they have achieved a very sophisticated brand that is recognized worldwide. There is a lot that producers in the Adirondack North Country region can learn from the successes of the Swiss cheese makers. Regional branding, specialized product development, and the production of raw milk products are all areas of interest to local producers. ANCA hopes to continue this dialogue and provide both an international perspective and local educational services that support this type of product diversification in the region.
Resources
1. A Study on the causes for elevated n-3 fatty acids in cows’ milk of alpine origin. Lipids. 2005 Feb;40(2): 191-202
2. Steinber, Jonathan: Why Switzerland 2nd Edition Cambridge University Press: 1996
3. www.vtcheese.com/vtcheese/rawmilk_files/rawmilk3.html
4. http://194.6.181.127/eng/index.html
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