"The Cheese Nun" - a lesson in biodiversity

I stumbled on this PBS gem while trying to stay awake so I could feed this year'sbummer lamb (Mom stepped on it, possibly ruining its left rear leg, and then abandoned it as damaged goods. We've splinted the nerve damaged hock in hopes that one so young will regenerate the nerve. So far, it's thriving with a Popsicle stick taped so as to keep the toes on the ground instead of the unshod part.)

Sister Noella and her sisters make cheese on a small scale in CT. I picked up the story in the middle just before she went off to UCONN to study the fungi that give the cheese its distinctive flavor as it ripens. I gather that part of the reason she went was to protect the way they handle raw milk and the process, viewed by some as not sanitary, enough even though its served for centuries.

She has managed a doctorate now. Published the first treatise, apparently, on fungi in cheese in almost a century. She earned a Fulbright to extend her work in French cheese; parlayed that into two additional years working with the French ministry which was concentrating similar work on bacteria. She identified some 400 unique strains of the same fungus in various places in France. Each strain gave the cheese a slightly different flavor.

She's back in the US now and in demand among the flourishing micro cheese making community that has become almost as diverse and the French one, even though the tone of this documentary led one to believe small cheese-making operations are in danger of going extinct. It has a parallel in the micro-breweries and craft bread bakeries that provide us with relief from mass produced "product" that dominates our markets.

They showed her at a cheese-makers' convention in Louisville, I think. She had microscopes with her and folks brought her their failures. She's become an authority and handles it well.

Anyway, while her story and the story of cheese was interesting, the photography was worthy of the best travelogue. From summer pastures of rural CT to 1000 year old caves in France. From a Riverboat on the Mississippi to the alps, it was lovingly photographed, inside and out.

I felt at home, not because I have anywhere near the depth of knowledge about any of the things we do here - Susan comes much closer to that - but these people, the cheese-makers, from Alpine farmers to monks and nuns, to ex-patriate American soldiers (Viet Nam)to rural American entrepreneurs, all share the grit to hold on to something old, diverse, and wonderful. The heart of it all: diversity. It warms the heart to know there are so many people striving hard on a small scale.

Catch it if you can on PBS. If you miss a broadcast, try your library.