Warpuny (Poland) (AFP)
The sheep are in the meadow, the cheeses, in a maturation room on the ground floor, while in the attic-living room a cascade of harmonious sounds flows from an old piano: Mazury, known for its large lakes, is also the homeland of ex-Polish city cheese makers.
Poland, a country with a great agricultural tradition, is already a European superpower with regard to the production of poultry or apples. Will it be one day for farm cheeses?
- "Make sheep" -
"There are around a thousand cheesemakers and each week I discover two or three new ones who are getting started," says food critic Gieno Mientkiewicz, a great cheese lover, AFP. They are often, he adds, "cultivated city dwellers who have left interesting jobs in big companies to seek silence, greenery and a different way of life". A current recalling France after May 68, when hippie communities had dreamed of "making sheep in the Causses".
The story of Rancho Frontiera owner in Warpuny, Ruslan Kozynko, provides an example.
Of Ukrainian origin, this classical pianist, composer and mountaineer lived in the big city of Poznan. His wife, Sylwia Szlandrowicz, studied agriculture.
When they decide to realize their bucolic dream, twenty years ago, and acquire a ruined farm of 17 hectares, they start by setting up a riding school. But this one does not bring much and they turn to cheeses.
"We did not take a vacation for almost 15 years before reaching a certain standard of living and comfort," says Kozynko.
Their cows are of Jersey breed, originally from the British island of Jersey. Quite small, with tawny hair, shaded with brown and gray, they give very oily milk "with exceptional taste".
"In Europe there are less and less naturally rich herbs and I think this is one of the reasons why our cheeses are so popular with the Poles but sometimes also with the Italians, the French or the Spaniards", boasts Sylwia Szlandrowicz.
The sheep are Friesian, one of the best dairy breeds in the world from East Frisia, in northern Germany.
"We make fresh sheep cheese, and a ripened cheese with a powerful flavor called Mazurian. It is a farmer's cheese made by hand, while the Italian pecorino, which it looks like, is an industrial product", explains Sylwia Szlandrowicz . A blue completes the range.
With jersiaise milk, they produce, among other things, a cheese reminiscent of parmesan, called Dzersejan, and a Blue Jersey.
The story of another farm in the region, "Nad Arem", specializing in goat cheeses, follows the same trend.
An entrepreneur, Helena Wroblewska, started out in the early 90s making sweaters in Olsztyn, the largest city in Mazuria. Exhausted by the Asian competition, she sees a meadow at the edge of a lake in Kierzliny and decides that "this is her place on Earth", she says.
She buys a farm in poor condition, renovates it, begins to raise goats, just for her. These multiply like rabbits, she does not know what to do with hundreds of liters of their milk.
- Three hundred goats -
"It was up to you, goat milk powder or cheese". These will be the cheeses. The attraction of country life is strong enough for one of her daughters, Izabela, a psychologist by trade, to join her and give new impetus to breeding.
Today, in a huge meadow, some three hundred goats - mostly from the Alps - are frolicking happily. The farm operates over 50 hectares of pasture and produces some ten tonnes of cheese per year.
"Now I make cheeses which take two years to mature. And also brined cheeses, to which we add herbs: nigella, bear's garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, fenugreek, coriander, l 'nettle, mint ", lists Izabela.
Polish artisan cheese makers have no trouble selling their produce near them. Therefore "they are not yet attacking the European market, fearing bureaucracy," says Mientkiewicz.
© 2020 AFP