NPR : Cheesemakers Taste a Change in the Weather
Yes, I know, another NPR story. But it’s a good one. As the climate changes, the cheesemakers are finding changes in the cheese.
In a remote alpine village 3,000 miles away, French cheesemaker Alex Pelletier sighs.
“Yeah, global warming is really depressing. Everybody’s talking about it,” says Pelletier, who, like the Putnams [in Vermont], makes Beaufort cheese. Pelletier’s worry is the unprecedented heat in the French Alps, which is making cows thirstier. Drinking more water, says Pelletier, dilutes the proteins and fats in the cows’ milk. And that costs the cheesemakers, who must use more milk to create the same amount of cheese.
Read the text and enjoy the pictures but the podcast has even more info.
technorati tags:Food, cheese, climate-change, Vermont, Alps, cows
Blogged with Flock
August 31, 2007 at 3:16 pm
We love beaufort! Oh no!
March 1, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Is there a website for these folks? From the picture, I can only say that they are not making true Beaufort cheese since true Beaufort only comes from the milk of the Tarentaise cow. I would be glad to sell them some so that they could make the true cheese.