Brown Swiss

May 18, 2022 

What surprised me about the deep gong of the cow bells was that each one struck a different note. The effect was a heavenly chorus ringing in my ears as I walked along the gravel path next to the mountain pasture in the Bregenzerwald area of Austria. The cows were intent on grazing, first grabbing mouthfuls of fresh green grass, before shifting their weight, one hoof, then another, to focus on a fresh patch. My spirit rose, each sound ringing out in the gentle breeze. It mixed with the raven’s calls in the wind, fading into the expansive backdrop of verdant pastureland, forests and distant mountain peaks.

This herd of cows was utterly unconcerned with our presence. At first, we came upon ten or fifteen of them grazing. As we climbed higher, we encountered more in the herd of fifty, dispersed in the forest and upper pastures. Our group of eighteen tourists were not a distraction to these massive beings, who appeared bigger and longer the closer we came to them. They dwarfed me, reaching to my shoulder height and seemingly as long as a compact car. Most were a mocha brown color, with an elegant silky hide, and each had overfilled udders protruding like basketballs between their hind legs. With their heads down, a bell harnessed by a leather strap around their neck, and a short length of chain dangling under their chins, they pursued the daily groove of a dairy cow sustaining herself. To me, it was a gift of beauty from another century, a precious moment. There were no other sounds except our booted feet scuffing the gravel as we followed the modest driveway a thousand feet up to the farmhouse.

The cows had recently migrated to the summer pasture, called “alm” in this area of Austria. Spring weather and the melting of the snow had signaled the move from the valley below to this higher elevation, a historic practice called “transhumance”. This higher altitude pastureland--at 4000 feet--was subalpine, with cultivated pastureland among the mountain forest. Here we (and they) were removed from human-generated wearying sounds: cars driving by, tractors in the distance, train whistles or airplanes overhead.

Our group of American tourists, Lynne and I included, all surpassed sixty five years old. We were following the French tour guide, Christian Fuhrmann. The evening before, he had led us on paths and lanes through the lower farms in the village of Lindenau. Each farm in the valley was a bustle of activity, as the farmers (mostly men) were shearing the foot tall grass with hand scythes and mowers. This labor-intensive process was the first step in harvesting the grass for storage in the barn until winter. Raising cows on grass in this pristine area, with clear water and clean air, and then harvesting their milk to make cheese, results in cheese valued in the market place for its quality and distinctive taste.

Now in their summer pasture, the herd of gals slowly makes its way to the milking barn at the top of the pasture land, walking with surprising grace for 1400 pound animals with udders full of milk. Before entering the barn, a few at a time, they vie for a long drink at the wooden water trough. There a simple pipe suspended over the trough supplies a continuous steam of cold, clear water. Later, I filled my water bottle from the same pipe.

The shady milking barn was fitted with individual stalls, and each stall had mechanical equipment that I, a suburban person, supposed were the milking machines. The pipes running around the periphery delivered the milk to the adjacent cheese making room.

Each of the fifty cows had a name in addition to its distinctive bell. Christian repeated a story about the ten year old son of the cheese maker. One evening, he was sitting at a table doing his homework when the cows were gathering at the barn to be milked. The flow of cows ended, but the boy looked up and said, “One is missing,” and named the cow. The farmer went out to find the cow, just as it crested the hill and wandered into the barn.

Milling around between the house and a rock wall graced with various shades of purple phlox, our group met the female farmer. Between our guides’ introductions, and answers to our questions, we learned more about her.

The farmer, Tina, was shy, but friendly, as curious about us as we were about her. With short graying hair and a stretchy gray top over her ample bosom, she wore simple black shorts and Birkenstock sandals. Her work was milking cows twice a day, seven days a week and making the cheese daily. In addition, each day she flipped every wheel of cheese that is aging in the expansive storage room.

We struggled to learn the breed of these cows from the German-speaking farmer. She answered our French-speaking guides, who then translated into English. The first answer was that these were “brown” cows, a seemingly obvious tag that could apply to many cows around the world. The hides of these cows had a light brown sheen, almost a cashmere appearance, more elegant and distinctive than the brown and white cows that I knew from my childhood. Their horns had black tips. After further conversation in German to French to English, a better answer surfaced. Many of these, but not all, were Brown Swiss cows.

“How did you come to be a cheesemaker?” we asked her. She looked straight at us when she answered in German. Then the guide translated. “Her father told her that she had to take this job after her uncle died.” As a female cheesemaker, she is in the minority. She has the help of two teenaged relatives, a girl and a boy, who volunteered to move up here for the summer, with the bonus that they are excused from school during the summer pasture season.

“Do you have internet?” one of us asked. Tina responded immediately, “Yes, the children wouldn’t come up here without it.” Tina also speculated that she didn’t think that the next generation would take on this work.

Tina has been tending cows and making cheese for 23 years, in addition to mothering her children. Her husband works at a separate occupation. She starts making cheese at five am every day, way too early for American tourists tucked in their hotel rooms in the valley below to witness. She agreed to tell us about the milking and cheese making process, so we gathered inside the building. One end was the house, the other end was the barn, and the cheese making kitchen and cheese storing room were in between. The cheese making room, adjacent to the milking barn, was sunken to basement level and rose two stories tall, with a balcony halfway up at the home level.

There I stood, leaning on the wooden railing, looking down at two gleaming, over sized copper vats which received the milk from the cows in the barn. Stainless steel countertops lined one wall lit by sun filled windows. Earlier that day, like every day, she had turned the fresh milk into four rounds of white cheese. The long paddles, sieves and scales hanging from the wall gave a hint of what was required.

Today’s cheese was already sitting in a cheese press, each round covered in cheesecloth. A single wheel seemed about two feet in diameter and six inches thick, weighing about 77 pounds. It was so heavy that when she raised up the cheese cloth from one edge, and deftly flipped the wheel over on the stainless steel counter, it landed with a loud THUMP which startled everyone in the large room. She tightened the circular wood form shaping the wheel of cheese, before returning it to the cheese press. By the end of the day, the new wheels of cheese would be rolled to the adjacent cold storage room.

 

Outside the house on a wood picnic table, Tina put out a wheel of her aged cheese for us to sample. Now covered with a yellow rind, this hard cheese was about six months old. My mouth filled with its full, rich, tangy flavor, still lingering in my taste buds as we took our leave and started walking back down the mountain.

I chatted briefly with Lynne, then I fell behind in order to take more photos to add to the many pictures I had already taken. Eventually I walked silently. I felt that I had glimpsed a truly different space, one free from the cacophony of urban living noises and distractions that make up a typical day for me. I could see the amount of arduous labor required to keep up this regional tradition. I could sense the isolation that was also the beauty of the summer pasture. I was grateful for this experience. 

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Facts:

Alpine transhumance: seasonal migration to high mountain pastures (Alp, Alm)

Braunvieh cow, a breed of domestic cattle originating in Switzerland and distributed throughout the Alpine region. It falls within the “Brown Mountain” group of cattle breeds. In modern times, it is primarily a dairy breed. Average female with is 610 kg. Female 135 cm. The American Brown Swiss makes up 75% of genetics of the Swiss Braunvieh. Brown or grey-brown in color. Nose is black and encircled by a pale ring. The horns are pale with dark points. A female cow produces between 7200 and 12,000 litres per year.

Bregenzerwalder Kasekeller opened in Lingenau in 2002. More than 32,000 cheese wheels are stored for aging in this cheese cellar. It was an initiative of the Kasestrase Bregenzerwald, to preserve small-scale agriculture and the diversity of local products in the Bregenz Forest, and to support Vorarlberg’s cheese culture.

The cheese made from the summer pasture: Alpkase, Voralberger Bergkase

Cheese made from winter pasture (beginning of October to end of May): Bergkase

 The Bregenzerwald Umgang “Bregenzerwald Walking tour”

 Lingenau, in southwest Austria:

Population 1,466 in 2018

Elevation  2,247 ft