Monastery Cheese

December 2000

Cheesemaking is now part of life on Papa Stronsay.
Brother Gerard Maria, C.SS.R. turning the cheeses.

June 2001

‘Made on Papay’:
Fr Richard Mary, C.SS.R. holding a genuine
Golgotha Monastery Island cheese.

August 2001

Exciting Prospect of Continuing the Catholic Cheese Tradition

The monks of Papa Stronsay are soon to launch into professional cheesemaking with the encouragement and direction of the Scottish Agricultural College, Scotland’s biggest supplier of Agricultural advice, and the Hannah Research Institute, Scotland’s main agricultural research institute.

Cheese to be from ancient monastic source

The College considers that the cheese from Papa Stronsay will take a place in the niche market of more expensive cheeses, given that the island’s cows, being of the Jersey breed, produce rich cheese of the highest quality. The cheese produced on the island would be a specialty cheese. It will be developed with expert help and will probably be the result of blending a cheese fungus first developed in one of the ancient monasteries of Europe with certain distinctive particularities from Scotland and Orkney, according to Dr Banks, cheesemaking researcher of the Hannah Research Institute, and advisor to the Scottish Agricultural College .

Island and Monastery setting judged an asset in cheese sales

The Scottish Agricultural College advisors judged that the major problem associated with the venture was building the proposed cow byre and cheesemaking plant on the island itself, because it would add £10,000 more expense to the erection of the building. However they were at pains to observe that, after the initial expense, the island itself would be a major asset to the sale of the cheese. The other assets, they remarked, would be that the cheese would be made in Orkney, in Scotland, and by the monks – all of which also help in the promotion of the product.

Monastery venture should gross £40,000 per annum

The Scottish Agricultural College estimated that a small herd of 20 cows averaging 17 litres per day for 9 months of the year would produce 95,200 litres of milk a year and 9,520 kgs of specialist cheese. The normal minimum price of cheese is £5.00 per kg and better cheeses sell for up to £8.00 per kg on today’s market. It is reasonable therefore to estimate that the cheese should earn between £40,000 and £50,000 per annum from which there are no costs of wages to be deducted although there will be normal running costs. In this financial climate the building should soon enough pay for itself. Dr Banks advised that there would be no difficulty in selling a unique cheese from Papa Stronsay for the Scottish market, which at the present time has few cheeses which are not variations of cheddar and Cheshire cheeses.

Interest on loans to be paid in cheese

The future looks bright for cheese production on Papa Stronsay. At the present time however the monks are still in need of a £40,000 loan for less than 5 years to build the facility. They are asking any of the readers who may be in a position to make such a loan or some part of it (e.g., £1,000 or US$1,500) to please give it consideration. The monks promise to send each lender a Papa Stronsay cheese every two months until the loan is repaid. They wish to emphasise that they are not asking that the loan become a donation. The monastery cheesemaking is to be undertaken as a business project and all loans should be returned within the 5 year period. The monastery will attain greater economic viability when the Papa Stronsay cheese is placed on the open market.

A Good Catholic Cheeseboard Thanks to our Monasteries

While cheese was known in Roman times, still it was our spiritual ancestors, the Catholic monks of the Middle Ages who played a primordial role in the innovation and development of cheese. To them we owe many of the classic varieties of cheese marketed today. Through the monks cheesemaking became a truly established process. Today only a comparatively small number of monasteries still produce their own cheese (such as the French Trappist monasteries of Tamié, Bellocq, Citeaux, Mont des Cat, and a few others).

The following cheese-board will give you to sample just some of the many Catholic cheeses developed over the centuries by our monasteries:

One evening of the autumn of 774 AD the Blessed Emperor Charlemagne (774-810 AD) was passing through Roquefort, in France while returning from Spain. He asked hospitality in a monastery of the region. Unfortunately it was a day of abstinence and the Abbot had nothing to offer the Emperor but cheese from the monastery’s sheep. While the Emperor showed his gratitude for the food he took great care to extract with his knife the blue mould from the cheese. Seeing this the Abbot remarked: “Sire, you are taking away the best part of the cheese.” The Emperor trusting his judgment ate the cheese and said, “My Lord Abbot, it’s delicious!” Before leaving the next day he asked that every Christmas the monastery would send two mules laden with Roquefort cheese to his capital of Aix-la-Chapelle. The monks had done it again!

During the time of the same Blessed Emperor Charlemagne, the Benedictine monks of “Monasterium Confluentes” in the valley of the Munster invented the Munster Cheese (Munster meaning Monastery) to conserve milk and nourish the numerous population which lived about the monastery gate.

The cheese Pont-l’Eveque goes back in time to the 12th Century and was created by the Cistercian monks installed in the West of Caen, Normandy, France.

English Wensleydale cheese owes its existence to the Cistercian monks of Jervaulx abbey who brought their cheesemaking talents with them from France in 1169. They produced their cheese until their monastery was destroyed at the protestant Reformation. The monks passed on their particular cheesemaking recipes and process to the local inhabitants of Lower Wensleydale.

1140 AD the monks of the Abbey of Bellelay, Jura, Switzerland laid their foundation stone and soon after produced the famous hard cheese known as “La Tete du Moine” (Monk’s Head). The name was first given in 1192 and as a formulated cheese name (cf. Munster which is simply “Monastery Cheese”), this is the oldest cheese name in Europe.

The Maroilles cheese produced in the Abbey close to Maroilles, France. This abbey first produced a cheese in 960 AD and then went on to develop the cheese called Maroilles which was the favourite cheese of Emperor Charles V, and Philip II of Spain his son. This cheese which is still in existence was made by the monks of the Abbey as early as the 11th and 12th century. In 1174 AD a law was passed advising all the farmers of the Maroilles district that, after the feast of St John the Baptist (24 June, midsummer), in preparation for the winter, they were to keep all their milk production for the cheesemaking carried out for the region by the monks.

Cheddar cheese: Certainly cheesemaking was well established in Cheddar from a very early age. The village of Cheddar had an important minster (monastery) from before the Norman Conquest. Cheddar savoir-faire was in the hands of the monks of Cheddar who in England (as in the rest of Europe) were developing and perfecting the great cheesemaking art and science. King Henry II declared Cheddar cheese to be the best in Britain, and the Great Roll of the Pipe (the King’s accounts) records that in 1170 the King purchased 10,240 lbs of Cheddar cheese at a cost of a farthing per pound. Cheddar cheese was so liked that the King’s son, the famous Prince John, purchased a similar amount in 1184.

The Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese was first produced by the Benedictine monks of the 12th century in their monastery in the valley of the river Enza in the region of Bologne. There are many written documents of the 12th and 13th centuries which attest that the cheese had already been perfected in that period and since that time its has remained unchanged to this day.

The blue cheese of Haut Jura in France called the Bleu de Gex goes back to the monks of the 13th century in the alpine Abbey of St Claude where their method of production was a closely guarded secret..

In the 16th century the Praemonstratensian monks of the Abbey of Bellelay produced the Bellelay cheese. The first mention of it in a document is in 1570 in a letter from the Abbot to the Prince-Bishop of Bâle.

Camembert Cheese owes its origin to Abbot Charles-Jean Bonvoust. During the French Revolution (1789) when all Catholic priests in France were forced to choose between betrayal of the Faith, execution or exile, some chose to hide themselves in the country to await better days. During October 1790, the Abbot was received into the house of Madame Marie Harel on her farm called Beaumoncel near the village of Camembert. In return for the refuge which she accorded him, he shared with her the secret of making the cheese which we know as Camembert.

The Colombier des Aillons was the cheese of the Carthusians of the Charterhouse of Savoy.

Port du Salut cheese first produced in 1816 was the work of the Trappist monks of the Abbey of Our Lady of Port-du-Salut at Entrammes, France.

Chimay cheese. In countryside covered with forests, pastures and crossed by many rivers, since 1876, the Trappist monks of Our Lady of Scourmont, near Chimay, have produced a unique cheese with the good milk of their farm; it continues today with modernised production equipment.

February 2005

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