A Cheesy Choice

Artisanal cheese is not a new concept, but its footing is becoming stronger in the food space, with people finally understanding the importance of homegrown, small-batch delights. These artisanal cheese makers are the newest players in the game, and weigh in on everything you need to know to get the best kinds for your palate

- Samreen Tungekar

Say cheese. Old saying, but always makes us smile. Cheese makes everything better, but the choices of ingredients for food, in general, has shifted from too-exotic-for-you to locally sourced, fresh produce and when we have fabulous indigenous cheese brands doing delish cheeses, the need for processed and mass-produced cheese is also diminishing.

You can’t talk about the uphill journey of artisanal cheese without mentioning ‘cheesemonger’ Mansi Jasani, who founded The Cheese Collective in 2014 and has built a cheese map with chef Garima Arora’s non-profit initiative, Food Forward India. This is a map that you can open in Google Earth, and it represents people, producers, curators, and everyone cheese-related in the country. I’ve tried some of the amazing cheese that Jasani’s own collective makes, and she knows her cheese well.

While the artisanal cheese culture has always existed in India, Arvind Chawla of Darima Farms informs that it was more prominent in the south and west of India than the north. North India’s obsession was with cottage cheese and cream, and not so much with wine and cheese. “The boom came with the wine culture in the mid-’90s, when Sula started, and the game changed. The IT industry boom and travelling abroad contributed to it,” Chawla explains.

Hotels, smaller cafés, chefs, and even hospitality chains are preferring cheese from artisanal cheesemakers. The pandemic saw another such flurry of supporting small businesses, and the need for more small-batch, top-notch quality cheese has started another conversation.