Marion Roeleveld LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD BY GEORGINA CAMPBELL
cheese retailers, affineurs and, since 2017, cheese museum), ‘It was an easy decision to make cheese. I knew about the production of Gouda, and we had this goats’ milk…’ The main Killeen Farmhouse Cheese production is a semi-hard goats’ cheese Gouda, made from pasteurised milk and traditional rennet and available plain or with fenugreek. With curds washed and pressed in the Gouda style and with a smooth white paste, the 5kg cheeses are covered in a thin breathable plastic coat and sold from two months of age, when the flavour is fresh and clean with a hint of nuttiness that develops as the cheese ages. Interestingly, the Courtyard Dairy – which has become a champion for several exceptional Irish cheeses, including Young Buck – ages Killeen
P
he cheesemaker’s cheesemaker’ is a good description of Marion Roeleveld. While not a household name like some of the pioneering West Cork cheesemakers of the 1970s who first made Irish farmhouse cheese a force to be reckoned with, Marion brought something different to the table when the former agricultural journalist left Holland in 2001 to settle in Galway and in 2004, using milk from her partner Haske’s goats, started making Killeen Farmhouse Cheese on their 50-acre farm near Portumna. Unlike most Irish cheesemakers, who tend to be self-taught, Marion had worked in cheese production in the Netherlands. As she said in an interview with Andy and Kathy Swinscoe of the Courtyard Dairy (the iconic North Yorkshire
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THE CHEESEMAKER’S CHEESEMAKER IS A GOOD DESCRIPTION OF MARION ROELEVELD. MARION BROUGHT SOMETHING DIFFERENT TO THE TABLE WHEN, USING MILK FROM HER PARTNER HASKE’S GOATS, SHE STARTED MAKING KILLEEN FARMHOUSE CHEESE ON THEIR 50-ACRE FARM NEAR PORTUMNA.
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