Travel notes
Giuseppe Gajarin, coordinator of two Italian Presidia, describes his visit to the Cape Verde Presidium.
At Cheese 2006 I met Giuseppe Quaranta, a Turin university academic who is advising the Bolona Goat Cheese Presidium (Cape Verde). He asked whether I could provide some technical assistance, particularly on the use of milk starter. Cape Verde stimulated my imagination and gave me itchy feet. I browsed through brochures, looked at photos, listened to friends talking about their visits. But none of it could describe what I would see. From March 3 to 10, 2008 I had the chance to see the Presidium with my own eyes. The archipelago. The people...
As soon as you get to Cape Verde you realize you have to adjust to a different pace of life: whatever you do, you just have to focus on it and take the time needed. Whether it is doing your work, meeting someone or tasting the simple wholesome local food.
Just getting to the producers on the island of Santo Antão is quite a trip in itself: from sea level to an altitude of 1500 meters on 27 km of unsurfaced road. It\'s almost telling you: “if you want to understand this product, you have to embark on a demanding journey, leaving frantic activity and thoughts behind”. At the end of the winding road you get to the Bolona Plateau, a beautiful, arid and harsh environment where about 1,700 goats live (there were almost 8,000 two years ago, but the drought has drastically reduced their numbers). They graze on hay (i.e. dry grass from the previous year!). They are only milked in the morning, by about 60 farmers who use part of the milk for the goat kids, to produce cheese for self-consumption and to take to the cooperative dairy which tries to assure them a minimum income. It is a basic dairy facility adapted to the requirements of the environment: solar panels are used to produce electricity and water is used very sparingly (even water for washing hands is recovered). The cheese maker is a young man of 27 years who walks for 1½ hours twice a day to do his work. He does the job with care, pride and dedication. We discuss the processing technique and work organization. Like all the cheesemakers he treats me with a little skepticism and suspicion. But we both learn something from each other.
I was amazed and impressed by their happiness and pride in taking part in the second San Lucio Competition for Bolona Goat Cheese. The farmers all dressed up, even their faces were transformed: no longer marked by fatigue and hard work, they were relaxed and radiant. After long journeys on foot or perched on boxes in pickup trucks, more than 60 producers brought the cheeses they had made with passion and effort, wrapped in embroidered pieces of cloth or lacework. It was a wonderful festive occasion, with awards for the most attractive billy goat and best cheeses.
This experience gave me food for thought and to some extent changed me. I am responsible for two cheese Presidia in Trentino… Hmm, what an easy life our farmers and cheesemakers have! After all these years with the Presidia, I better understand what a PRESIDIUM really means. Good. Clean. Fair. The Bolona Goat Cheese Presidium still has some way to go, but we certainly have more to do.
I would like to thank my travel companions from ONAF, Beppe Quaranta from Turin University and Slow Food for enabling me to go on this journey.
Giuseppe Gajarin
gaiarin.giampaolo@trentingrana.it
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