The Rise and Fall of Connecticut Dairy Farming
Dairy farming has been a part of Connecticut agriculture since Europeans first reached these shores.
New Curds on the Block
When I am asked what I do for a living, I can be a bit opaque. “I work in food” is a simple, blanket explanation that satisfies those who asked just to be polite, but when the curious push to know more, and I reveal that I specialize in cheese, the questions start coming. Imaginations run wild with thoughts of open-air markets and skillful artisans wielding large knives, carving up whole wheels of cheese. And to be fair, that does sound a lot like how I spend my time. I am a professional cheesemonger.
So You Want to be a Monger?
The work of a cheesemonger includes buying, tasting, and aging cheese, profiling and selecting wheels, storing cheese properly, and cutting whole wheels to bring to market when they are at peak deliciousness. The concept of mongering, or the procurement and dealing of a specified commodity, is a way of buying and selling food that has Old World roots. My great-grandfather, who immigrated from Sicily, settled in Clifton, New Jersey, and opened a grocery in 1914. He and his brother would take a horse and wagon across the river to New York City every morning to select produce, fresh-caught fish, and live poultry. He brought an Italian sensibility to the way he sourced the foods he sold in his market and served his community a taste of the quality and integrity he had grown up with. The American food system has changed a lot since 1914, and while the convenience of the one-stop shop has replaced the need for mongers in most of our lives, some independent retailers continue to specialize.
I learned the trade behind the counters of Greenwich Cheese Company in Cos Cob and Saxelby Cheesemongers in New York, two acclaimed independent cheese shops that place an emphasis on domestically produced dairy. Cheesemaking has deep roots in European tradition, but independent American cheesemakers are proving that American cheese is much more than Kraft Singles. In 2019, a cheese from Rogue Creamery in Oregon won “World Champion” at the World Cheese Awards in Bergamo, Italy, the first time in history that an American cheese has taken that title. It is an exciting time to be a cheesemaker in America, and we are well on our way to making cheeses in this country with household names as ubiquitous as Parmigiano-Reggiano and manchego.
Connecticut itself has a rich history of dairy farming, dating back to European settlers’ introduction of dairy cows to the colonies in the 1600s. But in spite of advancements in agricultural technology, the last half century has seen a drastic decrease in the number of dairy farms in Connecticut. A statistic from the Connecticut Farm Bureau cites a drop in the number of registered dairy farms from 817 in 1975 to fewer than 100 in 2018. State and non-governmental initiatives to preserve dairy farming have helped stabilize that number through farm subsidies and co-operatives like The Farmer’s Cow, Cabot, and AgriMark, but the volatility of federally regulated liquid milk prices makes the livelihood of American dairy farmers extremely uncertain. Small-scale cheesemaking offers potential insurance against the variable price of liquid milk and is one way of adding value to an undervalued product.
However, the infrastructure does not exist in any sort of sustainable way for farmstead cheesemakers to get their products past their own property line. Small dairies rely on self-promotion and on-site, honor-system farm stands to move their product, and while these stands may have a loyal following among neighbors, the market is small and relies heavily on repeat customers. Despite these hurdles, America is experiencing a renaissance in local and handmade food products, and while it is a dynamic time that could lead to a more sustainable future, this surge of interest in “farm-to-table” products places an unrealistic expectation on producers: that they do it all.
When I welcome customers to my farmers market stand and show them the cheeses I have (to quote my own sales pitch) “sourced from independent cheesemakers across Connecticut,” I am still asked whether or not I made all of the cheeses I have on display. I am met with disappointment when I say no, and really, I can’t blame them for their skepticism; people shop at a farmers market to meet their farmers. In a country where the gap between producer and consumer is so wide, the benefit of buying directly from a farmer includes a guarantee of freshness and quality, a chance to talk to the people who know their product most intimately, and an opportunity to pay them directly. But the expectation that the people who dedicate their lives to producing our food should also be the ones bringing it to market is not realistic.
A New Whey Forward
If we are going to expect a new generation of American artisans, crafters, and farmers to dedicate their life to this kind of work, it has to be made viable economically and with respect to lifestyle. The expectation to do it all results in a high level of burnout in careers in agriculture. In 2018, dairy farmers started receiving a leaflet with information for a suicide prevention hotline along with their monthly milk check, an initiative that, despite best intentions, left many farmers feeling like the writing is on the wall. We are overdue for a change. I see dairy farmers without the resources to sell their milk and cheesemakers without the resources to sell their cheese. Unsold milk gets dumped on the ground, and unsold cheese languishes on shelves. Without someone in the middle to champion handmade cheese, we are at a standstill. No amount of customer interest in real dairy will mend the system — this requires structural change.
I am not a legislator, nor am I a farmer, but I am a monger. I founded New Curds on the Block, LLC, in 2020 with an institutional commitment to bridging the gap between Connecticut dairies and their customers. When I say that I support local farms and cheesemakers, I mean I am driving to my producers on a weekly basis, tasting cheese with them, offering encouragement and consultation, listening to their concerns, troubleshooting, and selling what they need me to sell.
As a retailer, it’s not my favorite feeling to have to say no to customers when I don’t have a cheese they’ve gotten from me before, but it’s not excuse-making when I share with them what’s happening at the farms where their cheese is being made. If one of my cheesemakers has a particularly high yield from their milking herd that week, I may have more fresh cheeses like chevre and feta on the table than usual. If milk yield is lower than usual, I may not have yogurt and fresh cheese and will instead feature aged cheeses. Milk and cheese have a seasonality as much as tomatoes or peaches do; there is a natural fluctuation to the availability of fresh, real, handmade food, and my mission as a cheesemonger is to condition that expectation in my customers and to help them find joy in the variability. Customer education and understanding allows me to source cheese with respect to the lives and challenges of the producers from whom I buy, which I believe will build a stronger and more sustainable future for independent cheesemakers.
Buying from a monger has a learning curve. Unlike a grocery store cheese counter, you can’t help yourself. The cheesemonger may seem like a gatekeeper to the goods, but a willingness to engage, to come say hi, and to ask what your monger is excited about this week will open up a world of freshness, quality, and integrity. As I often joke to customers, “If you can’t trust your monger, who can you trust?”
You’ll wonder how you shopped any other way.
Kate J. Truini is the owner of New Curds on the Block, LLC, a mobile cheesemonger based in Woodbury, CT. You can find her curated selection of Connecticut cheeses at The Po (Washington), Walker Road Vineyards (Woodbury), Kent Falls Brewing (Kent), and at the Ledyard, Trumbull, and Washington Depot Farmers Markets, weekly.
All photos in this article were taken at Frank Food Co. in Kent.
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