A Year of Nettles, Picked in Five Weeks

We caught up with Otto Mead at Lynher Dairies, Cornwall

Somewhere in Truro this week, a wheel of Cornish Yarg is being wrapped in a nettle leaf that was picked by hand back in May. Somebody knelt in a Cornish hedgerow four months ago, chose that leaf over the one next to it, packed it up and wrote down where it came from. Then it waited.

We spoke to Otto Mead, who runs Lynher Dairies alongside his mother Catherine, about what autumn looks like for them. We were expecting a story about change. What we got instead was a story about lead times, hedgerows and one very humbling batch of cheese.

Cornish Yarg. Every leaf on that rind was picked by hand in a Cornish hedgerow.

Into the hedgerows

The nettles are the part most people never think about. You see a leaf on a rind and assume somebody walked out the back door that morning and grabbed a handful. Otto puts us straight.

Our nettles are picked by a team of highly skilled and valued Nettle Pickers. They start around May and if it's a good season we'll be done in five weeks.

Five weeks to gather a year's worth. What makes it possible, Otto explains, is Cornwall itself.

Because of our geographical layout and maritime proximity, the nettles come on at different times. This is crucial in being able to pick, pack, catalogue and freeze them without them all coming at once and creating pandemonium.

So the pick moves around Cornwall rather than landing everywhere at once, which is what makes a year's worth gatherable by a small team in five weeks. Every leaf is picked by hand and packed into parcels, and tested for contaminants, because this is a rind people eat. Then everything is logged.

The Lynher Dairies team, Otto on the far right.

Every package is catalogued so in a year's time we know exactly where it was picked, on what day and by who. Accountability and traceability is vital for making sure we have enough high-quality leaves to last the year.

That is a level of record keeping most people would associate with the cheese, not the wrapping. And they go one further. A portion of the year's leaves is kept off site, at what Otto cheerfully calls an undisclosed location.

It's a good insurance policy, in case we have any issues on site, to make sure we can keep making Yarg. There's no Nettle shop!

What makes a good leaf

Otto's answer is roughly the size of your palm, and bigger is better. Picked early, because the longer a leaf stays on the plant the more it deteriorates. Picked only in certain places, for the same reason they test them.

And here is the detail that makes the whole thing click into place.

There's this wonderful synergy between dairy cattle and nettles. Cows' manure is nitrogen rich, nettles like nitrogen, nettles grow where cows are. Also with the nature of small dairy farms, they often have a high proportion of hedgerows so there's plenty of space for them to grow.

Small dairy farms grow the nettles that wrap the cheese made from their milk. Nobody designed that. It just works, which is why there is no shortage of farmers happy to have the pickers on their land.

September, the quiet bit

"September is one of the more relaxing times of year," Otto says. "It's the time when we regather between the bustle of a busy summer in Cornwall and the big advance to Christmas."

Relaxing is relative. Most of it is spent talking numbers. How many boxes, how many labels, have we got enough cheese wires. Meanwhile the store for Cornish Kern gets replenished, and every nut, bolt and washer in the place gets a forensic clean and service, one of a handful of big annual strip-downs.

The cows, meanwhile, are mostly still out.

You'll generally still find the girls out loafing around in the fields in September.

Free-draining soils and a maritime breeze mean the grazing season runs long.

Cornwall suits grazing. Free-draining soils and a maritime breeze mean the season runs long, and lately the pattern has been very dry summers followed by good growing conditions in autumn. The grass that comes through is stemmy and dense, and that shows up in the vat.

This all in turn gives us some really good, generally more concentrated milk. The fats are normally quite firm due to the fibre, so that means a higher fat milk still maintains its body and doesn't become too soft.

The recipe doesn't change

We asked Otto how they adjust the make to keep Yarg tasting like Yarg as the season turns. His answer was the most interesting thing in the whole conversation.

If I'm honest, we don't really change the recipe. I think one of the most incredible things about cheese is the impact of time, heat and acidity and how it dramatically changes the result.

Every batch gets graded and minor tweaks get made along the way, but the original recipe has not fundamentally changed. The variation you taste between a June wheel and an October one is not somebody at a control panel. It is the milk, the weather and the passing of time doing their work on a process that stays put.

The Cornish Kern store, replenished through September.

And sometimes it doesn't come out

Which brings us to the honest bit. A few vats went astray earlier in the summer, and Otto did not dress it up.

Whilst this was deeply upsetting it was quite a humbling reminder of the science, craft and art form of what we do. It's not a given that because we follow a process we'll end up with Yarg.

We have been in this trade a long time and can tell you that very few makers will say that out loud. It is the best argument for artisan cheese we have heard this year. A factory guarantees you the same thing every time because it has engineered the life out of it. A dairy in Cornwall follows the same steps its always followed and still, occasionally, does not get there.

It's a culmination of passion and knowledge from the farm through to the affinage and mongering that make Yarg taste the way it does.

Cornish Kern. Clothbound, and matured long enough to turn deep gold.

The Yarg on our counter next month is being made right now, from milk taken off grass the cows are still standing in, wrapped in leaves picked in the spring by people who wrote down exactly which hedge they came from. Worth a thought before you cut into it.

Enjoy, from Cornwall.