If you want great Mexican Food, go to San Ysidro Cafe in the upper valley. If you want great conversation about farm life in the upper valley over the past hundred or so years, speak with Robert Roque, a farmer whose grandfather came to the El Paso area around 1910.Today cheese is made and packaged commercially, sent to central warehouses and meted out to the big box chain grocery stores. (There are, of course, still local, handcrafted makers and you can find them in and around El Paso Once at L&H Restaurant, a farmer from Mexico came in to sell his handmade asadero. It was delicious.)
Here's a cheese story from Roque: His mother would take the milk from their cows and let it sit overnight. In the morning, the cream that had risen to the top would be gently ladled off. Then it would be turned to cheese. As they had no rennet for coagulating the cheese, they used seeds from the silverleaf nightshade - something the Indians probably taught the Spaniards. Although this is a very poisonous weed (definitely don't eat the yellow berries), a few seeds - 3, 4, 5 - slowly heated with the cream acts as a coagulating agent. They are found in the whey afterwards.
Roque's mother made cheese this way. When the family would make a long trip to what is now the Second Barrio in El Paso, they would take their cheese and barter with it for beans and flour. When they did not go, locals would wonder dolefully where they were. That is how delicious and desirable was Señora Roque's cheese.I use this story to launch the first time this new blog talks about local food making done with local "things" - milk from the family cows, seeds from the silverleaf nightshade.
Roque still grows his family's own corn, melons, cantaloupe, chilis, beans and so forth. It can be done here and, if anything ever happens to the huge agri-business, it is good to know that we can be sustainable and perhaps, even now, we should begin to encourage more small farms and less mega-houses.
Excellent, well written, and what it truly all about!
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I do home cheese making and I'm interested in this sort of thing. The fact that the plant is so toxic makes me reluctant to just strike out on my own and try this. Have you done it yourself?
ReplyDeleteMy Great Auntie used these seeds every time and people from all over would go to her farm to buy a round loaf of it for 5 bucks. The seed was growing wild all around the property and they called it Trompapio. I started milking the cows at 4am by hand for her cheese making business.
DeleteJim,
ReplyDeleteThis post is amazing to me. I have bee searching for the last few weeks on how to make cheese without the animal rennet because I knew there was a way to do it like my ancestors did it, using certain plants. Today I did find Silverleaf Nightshade frozen in the field, from last season and I did the experience with milk to see if it would coagulate. Well, it did. I am in the process of moving back to Mexico, within the month and have every intention to learn how to make cheese, the mexican way! Stop by my blog, I just published my post on this subject.
I'm a New Mexico native, now living in Florida. And I remember my Grandma Lupe making this cheese on their farm in the 60s and 70s. I never saw the flowers, but I remember the berries and I remember the cheese.
ReplyDeleteDon't know what made me think of it tonight, much less Google it, but now that I know, I won't be passing up the asadero cheese again!!
I'm a New Mexico native, now living in Florida. And I remember my Grandma Lupe making this cheese on their farm in the 60s and 70s. I never saw the flowers, but I remember the berries and I remember the cheese.
ReplyDeleteDon't know what made me think of it tonight, much less Google it, but now that I know, I won't be passing up the asadero cheese again!!
Also a new mexico native, my great uncle still makes cheese with these berries, goatmilk cheese actually as he has a flock.
ReplyDeleteAlso a New Mexico native. I have silverleaf nightshade growing in my side garden. My mom's family made cheese this way, way back in the day. I did not know this plant is what made it possible and I would love to learn how to made cheese in this manner. Now I'm wondering if I should save the berries....thoughts anyone?
ReplyDelete