Why are Midnight Moon and Lamb Chopper made in Holland?
It’s kind of a long story: Cypress Grove’s founder, Mary Keehn, was approached by a Dutch cheese master at the New York Fancy Food Show over 20 years ago. He had brought a sample of aged goat cheese with him that his mother had made from the milk of his goats. Wishing to develop a market for his cheese, the two began a conversation and as they talked, they realized they shared a very similar love of animals and cheese.
Their relationship grew over the years with Mary visiting and being impressed by what seemed to be the “healthiest and happiest goats” she had ever seen. The flavor of the cheese was good at first taste, but over time they worked on a unique recipe. The cheese was aged longer, the cultures were adjusted, and the preservative lysozyme that is present in most cheeses of this type was removed.
At that time, there were few aged goat cheeses being produced in the US and nothing at all similar to Midnight Moon; the milk supply in the US was in very limited, isolated pockets. It would have been impossible to make it here. We are proud of shrinking the world a bit, and we love Midnight Moon so much that we created a recipe for Lamb Chopper, our aged sheep milk cheese, with the same expert cheesemakers.