{"id":29206,"date":"2017-01-28T09:30:21","date_gmt":"2017-01-28T14:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=29206"},"modified":"2019-08-06T13:46:52","modified_gmt":"2019-08-06T17:46:52","slug":"holier-swiss-indian-monks-find-purpose-cheese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/holier-swiss-indian-monks-find-purpose-cheese\/","title":{"rendered":"Holier than Swiss? Indian Monks Find Purpose in Cheese"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Many of us could describe ourselves as religiously devoted to cheese, but a group of monks in India is taking this adoration to a different level.<\/p>\n<p>NPR journalist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/thesalt\/2017\/01\/25\/510254472\/these-monks-have-a-calling-making-fresh-italian-cheese-in-india\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aarthi Gunnupuri recently visited this order of Vallombrosian monks in Bangalore<\/a> to learn more about its Italian cheesemaking operation. This pursuit, while fairly common among&nbsp;European monasteries, wasn&#8217;t an obvious choice for these monks; though the native&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/blog\/world-cheese-culture-india\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">paneer<\/a> is popular&nbsp;on the subcontinent, many Indians do not eat Western-style cheese on a regular basis. However, after listening to complaints about the lack of high-quality mozzarella in India&nbsp;from an Italian businessman (no doubt inspired more by his stomach than his business savvy), the monks realized&nbsp;fresh Italian cheese might be the perfect niche for them to fill after all. To one of the first Vallombrosian monks there, Father Michael, this also seemed to be a wonderful opportunity to generate income for the order.<\/p>\n<p>In the NPR article, Father Michael recalls the trial and error involved when he started this journey 13 years ago. The monks had to change&nbsp;locations (they were originally based in the hotter city of Kottayam before realizing it was impossible to make fresh cheeses in such oppressive temperatures), and ensuring a high, consistent quality of milk from suppliers proved to be so difficult that at one point, the order even tried overseeing its own buffaloes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We pay much more than the market price to ensure that our milk is free of adulterants,&#8221; Father Michael told Gunnupuri. &#8220;Even then, there have been times when the cheese simply does not set and we have to discard the product.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The&nbsp;Vallombrosian monks now produce more than 200 pounds of cheese a day. They sell their products\u2014which include mozzarella, burrata, and bocconcini\u2014mainly to high-end restaurants and hotels in India&#8217;s largest cities, as well as some Bangalore shops, appeasing curd-craving expats and Indians who want to experiment with Western cooking.<\/p>\n<p>Read Aarthi Gunnupuri&#8217;s full report on Father Michael and the Vallombrosian monks <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/thesalt\/2017\/01\/25\/510254472\/these-monks-have-a-calling-making-fresh-italian-cheese-in-india\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An order of monks in India find a source of income in Italian cheesemaking<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":29244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[19078,14936,19086,19085,1994,2087,19081,15688,19082,19084,19083,19077,983,19079,19080],"coauthors":[970],"class_list":["post-29206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cheese-bites","tag-aarthi-gunnupuri","tag-anne-jastrzebski","tag-bangalore","tag-bocconcini","tag-burrata","tag-cheese","tag-father-michael","tag-india","tag-kottayam","tag-monk-cheesemakers","tag-monk-produced-cheese","tag-monks","tag-mozzarella","tag-npr","tag-vallombrosian-monks"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.4 (Yoast SEO v24.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Holier than Swiss? Indian Monks Find Purpose in Cheese - culture: the word on cheese<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/holier-swiss-indian-monks-find-purpose-cheese\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Holier than Swiss? 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