Photo essay - The role of death in cheese: Easter on a goat farm in Abruzzo.

Alla Casa Vecchia, site of a recent Sour Milk School workshop.

This is the herd of Alla Casa Vecchia in Abruzzo, at their winter quarters in an old stable beneath a house. The goats are milked each morning, but in these days just before Easter there is not much, as the kids who have been born in the past few months are drinking their fill. Soon, many will be slaughtered for Easter tables, allowing milk to be freed up for this year’s cheese to be made. This is the origin of traditions of consuming young, milk-drinking animals at this time of year. This is the sacrifice at the root of consuming milk, making cheese, and living with dairy animals.

The energy of the young animals who are sacrificed rolls on like a wave, their bodies and the milk intended for them becoming our food. These animals are not to be pitied, but revered, for giving their lives so that ours may continue.

Left: A plump abomasum from a 10 day old kid, who was feeding solely on mothers milk. It will be dried and used to make rennet paste. Right: An Abomasum from a 1 month old who was eating hay, and would not make quality rennet.

The Caprino from Alla Casa Vecchia.

Consuming cheese is inherently tied to the death of these young ruminants.

The highest honor we can give these animals is to appreciate all of the meat and milk they are giving us, transforming it into life sustaining cheese, sculptures dedicated to life and motherhood. Creation and death. Birth and decay.

This is what spring, and Easter mean to me.

That the wheel stops for no one.

Giocondo milks the goats that he loves and cares for.

Milk represents new life, but also death. The morning milk is turned into cheese, made without the addition of an intentional starter culture. The microbes in the raw milk ferment it, and then die as well, releasing enzymes that take part in the ripening the cheese. This is yet another layer in the fractal belts of the sacred circle.

A stone shelter called a Tholo, which can be seen across the Apennine highlands of Abruzzo.

The Town of Pacentro, a well preserved Medieval village sitting above Sulmona.

The farm sits below a mountain village built around a medieval fortress. In the highlands above are well preserved Tholos, stone shelters that were used by mobile shepherds. Long distance horizontal transhumance was practiced between here and Puglia. A shorter vertical one saw people from lower villages like Pacentro bring large herds up in the summer, to graze on mountain meadows.

It is in Pacentro that the Old House sits - Alla Casa Vecchia - where Giocondo, Stella, Virginia, and Mia make food, and take care of people, while selling their cured meats and cheeses. You should definitely go and tastes all the things, just watch out for Nonna Virginia, who may attempt to convince you to buy a home in town, get married, and settle down. Perhaps it’s not such a bad idea.

A woven basket we formed cheese in during the workshop.

It was my honor to spend two weeks here, learning about the farm, being present at this crucial time of year. To have a group gather to learn from this family and myself, while sharing their own stories and knowledge, is most rewarding.

Sour Milk School at the Old House may be over, but the waves ripple outward, towards unseen shores.

The wheel keeps spinning.

I share stories, while working milk in a copper pot with annancient stick used solely for this task that has accumulated a coral reef like layer of milk minerals. Photo credit: ROBERTA COMPAGNONE

Sacrificial animals at their last supper.