Unlike The Boy, I have always been a bit of a cheese fan. Hard English, French softies and even in Nepal, yak cheese. Indeed I brought a kilo from my Christmas hike.
Herds of yak and cross-breeds can be found on the higher passes of Lahaul and Spiti valleys, and yet local cheese can´t be found. Both Nepali owned German Bakeries in Kaza and Tabo are selling Nepalese yak cheese for a whopping Rs1000 per kilo. In Kaza, the owner tell me that the local yak herders don´t know how to produce it. I immediately decide to go and teach them – this could be very lucrative. However, in Tabo I glean more information.
The yaks in India are of a different genetic make-up to their Nepali cousins. The fat content of the milk is different and it takes considerably more milk from Indian yak to produce a worthwhile quantity for cheese production than their Nepali counterparts.
To make matters worse, domestic production of yak cheese is down in Nepal at the moment and prices have close to doubled since last year. I can only hope the situation improves dramatically.
mmmm...yak cheese... i use to buy kg's of it while trekking in nepal.
ReplyDeletewhile you're training the indians to make cheese, you might as well start genetically modifying their cows to produce fatter milk...