Cheese Trekking

A no-holds-barred guide to the global traditions of cheese, dairying, and pastoralism alongside one man's quest to make milk Sacred again.
Cheese Trekking recounts the author's experiences visiting pastoral communities and cheesemakers in various countries and explains how cheeses can be local manifestations while also representing global archetypes, strategies that have been adopted in many places. It describes the constellations (a range of complementary milk foods that utilize all byproducts of cheesemaking) of various regions through a wide-angle lens. The central premise is that milk has a terroir, born from the plants and ecology of a landscape, that is concentrated via ruminant digestion and lactation and carries through the barns and milk sheds to be steered by human hands and cultural practices into foods. There is a growing international movement to return to the roots of natural cheesemaking, at the core of which is a philosophy of working with rather than against microbes and nature; the sacredness of motherhood, milk, and life itself; and the ethics involved in dairying, given its intimate involvement with the killing and eating of livestock. It offers firsthand evidence that humans can be stewards of landscapes, shepherds of microbes, and keepers of genetic wealth in the form of heritage livestock breeds, while crafting delicious, safe, nutrient-dense milk foods.

Trevor Warmedahl has a well-established identity as a nomadic cheesemaker and is knowledgeable about grazing practices and milk fermentation globally. He's been a cheesemaker for the past decade working with companies of various sizes, but with a dedicated focus on farmstead operations and natural/raw milk. His interest is in what he describes as "endangered cheeses and milk fermentation practices of rural pastoral communities, the global diversity of these foods, and their ties to regional cultures and agricultural systems." Trevor won the 2022 Daphne Zepos Teaching Award for cheese professionals hoping to further their paths and bring home to North America valuable knowledge to benefit cheesemakers. His current project, The Sour Milk School, offers five-day natural cheesemaking workshops held on farms in the US and abroad.