When we began looking to learn more about the new American cheese, it seemed logical to begin close to home. Alas, our inquiries got us nowhere. "There are no cheesemakers in Florida," we heard, and we were offered varying reasons why making cheese had never become a Florida tradition.
We were eventually fortunate to meet local dairymen at our farmers market who make and sell goat milk cheeses. Neither pasteurized nor aged, their cheeses are technically not salable as food for people and must be labeled "not for human consumption." We were happy to have found them and enjoy their cheese, but wondered where were the other kinds of new cheesemakers we had met in Vermont, New York state, and Canada. They were producing pasteurized or aged raw milk cheeses that met all government food safety regulations.
Just as The Summer of a Thousand Cheeses was about to go off to the printer we began finding them. First we learned of a Florida dairy in nearby Live Oak selling farmstead cheeses in local markets. From them we learned of other new cheesemakers starting up in Winter Park, Florida; their cheeses had only just begun to reach the marketplace. And through the folks at the Winter Park Dairy we learned of a new creamery in Hawthorne, Florida, only 15 miles from Gainesville and so new that its first cheeses were just getting ready for sale.
A brief section on the Winter Park Dairy did make its way into our book, but timing was tight and we weren't able to include the others. We may have more to say about them in future blogs. For now we are pleased to display their labels and report that the Wainwright Dairy and the Cypress Point Creamery are producing great cheeses that are available in locally owned grocery stores and farmers markets in the Gainesville area.
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