Blessed is the Last Cheese Maker

Through the years I've visited a fair number of monasteries and convents in a variety of locations. They include Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Colorado, New Mexico. Most have been places where silence is cherished and observed. Just the same, I've had the opportunity to chat with a few of the brothers and sisters. These communities of prayer have been Benedictine or Trappist in nearly every instance, which means "ora et labora" --pray and work. Sure they observe the offices of daily prayer, but they are expected to be self-sustaining. The places I've visited engage in everything from cattle ranching, to website designing, to egg-producing, to Christmas cake baking. I accepted the invitation to help with the cake-making brothers and was surprised that their habits gave way to pristine white overalls in an industrial kitchen.

In Canada many monasteries have produced cheese -- think of Oka in Quebec. Except that those Trappist brothers out of the cheese biz as they aged (the monks, not the cheeses.) The same is true in other locations, including a monastery in Manitoba. Brother Alberic is the last cheesemaker at Notre Dame des Prairies, having joined this monastery from Oka. He is the last monk in North America to make Trappist style cheese. This is how he is described in a CBC piece:

Eighty-three-year-old monk Brother Albéric says that if you stacked all the cheese he's made in his life, the pile would reach up to heaven. Every morning, the monk is in the kitchen at the Notre Dame des Prairies monastery near Holland, Man., by 8:30 a.m., crafting fresh wheels of fromage de la trappe — cheese in the Trappist style, made with unpasteurized milk. At that point, he's already been awake for hours, after getting up at 3:30 a.m. to sing and pray with the four other elderly monks who are part of the Trappist order at the monastery. He's in the dim cellar by 10 or 10:30, handwashing dozens of the 10-pound wheels in a special brine as they age, in silent, spiritual contemplation.

About his impending retirement Alberic says "For me, it's the will of God, I'm old, I'm tired, I [have] nobody.… It's time to finish."



While this sounds like a lament, Alberic is passing on his knowledge to a couple Dustin Peltier  and Rachel Isaak who are preparing to start their own cheesemaking business in the tradition of the  monks. Rachel isn't allowed in to the inner world of the monastery, so she is learning through Dustin.

I'm encouraged to hear that some of these traditions will survive, but I am saddened that so many of these monastic communities are coming to an end and their crafts will move elsewhere. They were places of spiritual and physical nourishment through the years. In the words of the film Life of Brian, Blessed are the cheese-makers!