{"id":47528,"date":"2024-05-21T12:47:03","date_gmt":"2024-05-21T16:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=47528"},"modified":"2024-05-21T13:58:44","modified_gmt":"2024-05-21T17:58:44","slug":"a-cheesemakers-farewell-to-beechers-handmade-cheese-nyc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/a-cheesemakers-farewell-to-beechers-handmade-cheese-nyc\/","title":{"rendered":"A Cheesemaker\u2019s Farewell to Beecher’s Handmade Cheese NYC\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Reflecting on my time at the city\u2019s cheesemaking institution.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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 Beecher\u2019s cheesemakers fill hoops with cheddar curd to be pressed into 40 lb blocks overnight.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Like walking through a picked-clean ribcage, I stepped past the gaping door frame. Nothing remained of the room besides the pockmark drain holes, a hanging light, and battered windows, now appearing so much larger in the empty space. Layers of flooring had been ripped up to reveal concrete, walls removed, and stainless steel equipment whisked away, leaving no trace of the frantic, kinetic, pounding pace of cheesemaking that once defined this space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I lived in this room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For four years I pulled on my red rubber boots and stepped onto the production floor long before sunrise. I oscillated from pasteurizer to vat, drain table to hydraulic press, and breaking table to vacuum sealer as my head filled with the crashing of metal on metal, steam hissing through pipes, music blasting, and cheesemakers shouting to be heard past my earplugs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this floor, I smashed my fingers, tore apart the tendons in my wrist and shoulders, cried in pain and frustration, laughed myself light-headed, built a body I learned to love, wiped mold, scrubbed butter fat, burned my nostrils with cleaning chemicals, and seared my fingertips with too-hot water. In this room, I grew, changed, and found myself. And, I made thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds of cheddar cheese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Loaves of cheddar curd stacked on the drain table mid-way through the cheddaring process. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Beecher\u2019s Handmade Cheese<\/a> stood on the corner of 20th and Broadway in Manhattan\u2019s Flatiron District since 2011, when I was a junior in high school. I worked my first shift two months after graduating college and my final shift four years later. But I never really left. I visited to catch up and hear about the new guys, the recent injuries, and the drama. I stopped by to pick up fresh curd and snag \u201ctake-me\u201d pieces from blocks cut for fat and moisture testing. I came back for a month after finishing journalism school to help carry 40 lb blocks up and down the stairs when the elevator broke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beecher\u2019s was always there\u2014a steady presence to point to when people asked about my past. I am a cheesemaker, a Beecher\u2019s cheesemaker, whose hands they mean in the name: Beecher\u2019s Handmade <\/em>Cheese. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in October 2023, on a Friday when I went to pick up curds, the familiar dented side door was marred with a slip of paper saying, \u201cPERMANENTLY CLOSED.\u201d The production manager got the news Wednesday night and canceled the milk order for Thursday morning. No more cheese was made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In hindsight, I should\u2019ve known it was coming. In New York, everything shifts and changes with the seasons. Institutions unceremoniously vanish. You don\u2019t even notice \u2018til you walk past and wonder, \u201cWhen did that become a bank?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As my partner says, \u201cIf you hate it, don\u2019t worry, it\u2019ll be gone soon. If you love it, cherish it, it won\u2019t last long.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hated it there. I hated the pain of repetitive injuries that tore me from sleep, the coworkers who sat on their phones in the changing room when we needed all hands on deck, and the exhaustion that sucked away my social life and shortened my fuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I loved it there. I loved the pace of production, the tangible proof of a hard day\u2019s work, the ache in my muscles, the easy sleep that came after early mornings and ten-hour shifts, my fridge bursting with America\u2019s best cheeses picked from the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But whether I loved or hated it didn\u2019t matter when the landlord doubled the rent. The space sits empty. No one makes aged cheese in New York City. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flagship is still made in Seattle, but after so many years it feels weird to buy pre-cuts crafted so far away. I don\u2019t know the clang of their pasteurizer, the thump of their curd mill, or the whoosh of their vacuum sealer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily, my fridge is packed with aging 4 lb blocks. I\u2019ll cherish these remaining pieces of Beecher\u2019s NYC. I love Flagship at every age, from day of curds to 4 year (the most mature). I\u2019m not sure when I\u2019ll be ready to break open my last pieces. I\u2019m patient and I don\u2019t like change, so it could be a while. I want to know Flagship at eight, ten, at 20 years. To taste a cheese at different stages of aging is an oddly intimate gift\u2014a relationship with fermentation and maturation I never dreamed of having. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But having less Flagship means I can reach past the familiar. I\u2019m falling in love with a goat camembert, a nutty blue, and a caraway alpine. I\u2019m making ricotta<\/a> and cream cheese<\/a> at home. I\u2019m expanding my horizons and letting go of Beecher\u2019s NYC one piece at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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