Hello traveller! For the foodie in you, head for a cheesy vacation

Hello traveller, say cheese!

Alpine farmers call their cows’ milk ‘champagne of the morning’. Read along to know how Swiss cheese gains its boastful title

Heard of the goodness of Swiss cheese, then here’s what you must know about what makes it so special.

The cows graze all night, feeding on the goodness of alpine growth of lush grass and colourful flowers that gives the cheese its taste, and return at the crack of dawn.

A 20-minute drive into the hills from the Gstaad Palace, 93 farms in the canton of Bern and part of Sannen municipality open a world of traditional cheese making since 800 years. Surrounded by green pastures, and peppered with wooden houses decorated with red geranium flowers, we stand outside a 230-year-old hut owned by Helene and Reudi Wahren. “My family has been making cheese for the past 230 years, using raw cow’s milk, sour whey and rennet, a powder made from the stomach of goats or cows and responsible for coagulating the milk.


Alpine cheese is made from raw milk, rennet and sour whey.

We milk cows twice a day, and the milk collected in the evening is cooled down to 7-10 degrees Celcius and stored overnight. Next morning, it is poured in a cooper pot and heated to 32 degrees on a fire. In the Wahren household, five-year-old Simon, Reudi’s grandson, insists on lighting the fire.


Alpine cheese rolls: After five to six months, alpine cheese is ready for consumption. It is usually served in rolls.

Reudi adds greenish sour whey into the pot. This is the ingredient is responsible for eating the sugar in the milk. The pot of 250 litres of milk has a chunky later of milk that has a yogurt-like consistency. Reudi uses a harp, a tool to cut through the layer of cottage cheese that has formed as a top layer. After 30 minutes of stirring, the cottage cheese goes tighter and harder, and after another 30 minutes, he removes it using linen cloth, leaving only the whey behind. The curd gathered in the cloth is placed in the wheel molds the cheese is pressed into shape.


Cheese wheel: Curd is separated from whey and set into moulds to make a cheese wheel.

The wheel is washed with salt water every three days, and kept in the cellar for six months turning it into alpine cheese which has a hard consistency similar to parmesan. With 18 cows, and 90 days of summer from May to July, Reudi manages to make 1,800 kg of cheese. “I watched my father make cheese, but I also went to a school in near Thun to get a license in cheese making,” says Reudi, whose daughters take over after him. “My wife Helene and I are only helping them run the farm at the moment,” the 71-yearold signs off. While this cheese will take six months to mature, we are offered a breakfast spread of yogurt, bread, sausages, fresh milk and alpine cheese.

Contributed by Phorum Dalal