’Nati Gouda from Urban Stead
An amazing handcrafted Gouda from Southern Ohio
One of the key beliefs of anarchism is that the means we use to do something must be congruous with the outcomes we want to achieve. So if we want to imagine our business as a craft, that could, by definition, come only from working extensively with craft producers. And this special artisan cheese is made by one of the best in the Midwest!
I’m talking about a fantastic new arrival in the Deli’s cheese case. It’s called ’Nati Gouda, and it comes from the good folks at Urban Stead in Cincinnati. To be honest, it was so good, it caught me completely by surprise! It’s made by hand using only local Jersey milk, and, to Urban Stead’s credit, they’ve left the cheese unwaxed, with a natural rind. (This is how Gouda was typically made until the late 19th century, when cheesemakers began to wax the cheese to achieve a longer shelf life.) The flavor of the ’Nati Gouda is exceptional. In fact, it was just awarded Third Place Best of Show in the American Cheese Society’s annual competition.
And the name of this new cheese? Well, when I first heard it, my mind went not to the Southern Ohio city, but to reggae—specifically, the remarkable musician Bob Marley and his 1974 album Natty Dread. In its 2000 review of the record’s reissue, Rolling Stone wrote:
Natty Dread wrangled the seemingly unreconcilable impulses of reggae—its economy of line and expansiveness of spirit—into an intense evocation of a people’s boundless capacities.
I want to suggest that ’Nati Gouda does much the same for the cheese world. It’s both an amazing artisan cheese and a cheese with flavors accessible to most anyone. It’s got a great rhythm that I have a hard time getting out of my mind. Maybe I’ll imagine it as “the Bob Marley of the cheese world.” It’s awesome and inspiring, with a big personality, and it’ll make a marvelous difference in the culinary life of anybody who tries it.
Andrea Siefring-Robbins, co-founder of Urban Stead, shares the backstory:
’Nati Gouda is a nod to the city we love so much, as well as a nod to its beautiful natural rind.
We’ve struggled so much over the years to get our ’Nati Gouda where we wanted it to be—we threw out a LOT of batches. We had a lot of issues with it early on in our program, so much so that we were close to scrapping this cheese from the lineup. We are surely glad we didn’t do that. Scott [Robbins] has adjusted his make on this cheese to address our past issues, and Chris works so diligently to take care of the beautiful rinds on the cheese.
As a small-batch cheesemaker, we typically make 12 to 20 wheels in a batch at about 15 pounds a wheel each. The cheese spends about 48 hours in the brine and then heads to the drying cooler, where it spends at least a week but sometimes more, depending on how quickly a new batch needs to move into the cooler. It then goes into our humidity- and temperature-controlled aging room, where it spends the next 16 to 20 months aging on wood boards made of poplar. Each wheel is flipped almost every day for the first 90 days of its life, and then several times a week thereafter. Our amazing team of affineurs are like cheese coaches—they determine what each batch, and sometimes each wheel, needs to be its best, and they tailor their work accordingly. As you know, young cheese is like a baby—it requires a lot of TLC and babysitting. As they get older, they’re a bit more independent and don’t need quite as much detailed care.
We are often asked what made us choose to make a natural-rind gouda, as it’s pretty unusual. Scott and I knew from the get-go that we wanted to make natural-rind cheese and let their beauty shine. Scott is also working to coax as much flavor out of our cheeses as he possibly can, and feels that the natural rind helps accelerate flavor development and amino acid breakdown. We source our Jersey cow milk from our third-generation dairy farm partner, Bohl’s Jerseys. This high-quality Jersey cow milk helps us to make the most flavorful cheese, which remains creamy with the perfect balance of tyrosine crystals at 16 to 20 months of age.
Cheese takes a village, and I’m so proud of our village. I’m working to plan a party for our team to celebrate our accomplishments. It’s so easy to come back to the creamery and put our heads down to keep doing our work without taking the time to recognize how much we’ve accomplished in a short eight and a half years.
Speaking of recognition, one of the longtime cheese managers at the Deli, Trevor Murray, has been singing the praises of both the cheese and the people who make it. ’Nati Gouda is nutty, buttery, creamy, and subtly sweet, with a hint of the nice nose and a little of the special flavor that gives Goudas their distinctive character—somewhere on the continuum between an English farmhouse cheddar and a good Swiss mountain cheese. It’s great on its own, or with the Bakehouse’s Roadhouse Bread and a spread of Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter. Or serve it with the fresh stone fruit that’s on the market right now. Put on a bit of Bob Marley (I’m listening to him now), nibble, and enjoy!
