Features
A Co. Clare Delicacy
'Some people will tell you that they can taste the smell of the puck from goat's cheese says cheesemaker John McDonald. 'But goat's cheese is becoming more popular and the demand among Irish consumers is rising.'
John has a hundred and fifty goats on his sixty-four acre organic farm at Inagh in Co. Clare. The goats have been kidding since the beginning of March and at the moment there are forty-five of the herd being milked. By June they will all be milking and they should continue until the end of the year. Last year most of the herd very conveniently stopped milking on Christmas eve.
In the past goats have been seen as the poor man's cow. But John disagrees with this view. He believes goats are better for marginal land in that they won't poach the ground like cattle. A good goat will give a thousand litres of milk a year and a herd of goats can produce more milk per acre than would cows.
All the milk produced at Inagh will be made into cheese. Originally made by Meg and Derick Gordan, Inagh goat's cheese has been a familiar addition to cheese boards in restaurant for twenty years. John bought the business from them. More importantly he also bought the recipe for their 'St Tola' soft cheese and their 'Lough Caum' hard cheese. And they taught him how to make the cheese.
John learnt that the best cheese is made from fresh milk. 'If you leave it go cold you will affect the taste' he says. The downside of this principle means that as the goats are milked twice a day, John has to make the cheese twice a day, seven days a week. Fortunately he has Ada Horn from the Faroe Islands to help him. And local farmer Joe Shannon does the milking for him. Nevertheless a seven - day working week requires huge dedication and commitment.
Making cheese from unpasteurised milk is a controversial topic among cheesemakers. Many like John believe that the cheese is purer without pasteurisation and has a better taste. As John explained 'the purpose of pasteurisation is to protect consumers from brucellosis and TB .' But goats don't get these diseases so there is no danger of them being passed on in their milk.' Another aspect of the pasteurisation debate is the recent evidence that pasteurisation reduces the vitamin and mineral content of the milk and therefore reduces the health value of the cheese.
John has the IOFGA organic symbol for his cheese for the past two years. This he believes gives him the edge against competing imports. 'My biggest problem is competition from mass produced goat's cheeses from France' says John. 'I can buy French goat's cheese at wholesale prices cheaper that I can produce it myself.'
By far the most difficult part of goat keeping for John is the fact that there is no market for the male kids. He keeps some of the females for replacements and sells the others. But most of the male kids have to be put down.
'There's very little demand for goats meat' says John. 'It would cost about sixty pounds to raise a male goat. But they wouldn't be worth that for meat. You'd never get sixty pounds for them.'
So there is little alternative to having the kids put down. Last year John got the vet to put down forty-two kids. They were put down humanely by injection but it wasn't a pleasant day's work for John or the vet. No farmer likes to see his young stock being put down.
John puts ads in the local papers looking for good homes for the male kids. He sells them for a fiver. 'Although I want to get rid of them I wouldn't give them away for nothing' says John.' People don't appreciate or look after anything they are given for nothing.' Some people believe that the days of small farm enterprises and individual craftsmanship are over. They predict that mass production and cheaper prices will eventually put them all out of business. But anyone who has tasted Inagh cheese and compared it with its mass-produced imported competitor will know that such people are very wrong indeed!
Gillian Westbrook has been appointed to the new position of
General Manager with IOFGA. Coming from a background in the regulatory area...
