Daisy Cheddar Blooms On The Palate

Vella Cheese's Daisy cheddar doesn't have nearly the fame of its acclaimed dry Jack, but the cheddar merits a fan club, too.

Sonoma cheesemaker Ig Vella is a living legend in the artisan cheese world and a mentor to many newcomers. But some of his own cheeses, like the Daisy cheddar, remain underappreciated in their own backyard.

"When the world was young and everybody made cheddar, a single daisy was 221/2 pounds," says Vella, when I asked him to explain the cheese's name. Cheddar makers could choose from about 40 different hoop sizes, the hoop being the round mold that holds and shapes the fresh curds while they drain. Each hoop size, like the daisy hoop, had a different name.

When Vella, who is approaching 80 years old, was starting out at Vella Cheese, a business his father started, San Francisco's mom-and-pop stores would place a twice-weekly order: typically, for a whole Teleme, a fresh Monterey Jack, a dry Monterey Jack and a quarter of a daisy. But the local public health officials didn't like the idea of the cheddar being cut and wrapped at the distributor's warehouse, so cheesemakers devised the "California daisy," which yields a 10-pound wheel.

Today, Vella makes the Daisy cheddar with raw cow's milk from a single Schellville dairy. He follows a traditional cheddar recipe, which involves cutting the curds small, gathering them into thick slabs while they are still in the vat, then stacking and turning the slabs in the vat repeatedly. It is backbreaking work, but the process helps control the elimination of the whey, a critical step in producing good cheddar.