KEY POINTS:
Well within living memory - even of those given to the odd elderly moment - you could get only two kinds of cheese here: cheddar and smoked. The processed, foil-wrapped Chesdale was a revolution.
These were the days when wine was made by - and largely for - Dalmatians in West Auckland, when the "avocado pear" and garlic were viewed with suspicion in polite society.
It's safe to say we have come a long way. And safer still to add that much of our progress in matters of gastronomy has been thanks to backyard, artisanal producers who have made small batches of product that must at first have seemed commercially improbable. The fruits of their labour - pestos, oils, preserves, jams - are now widely available.
The "small is beautiful" philosophy was underlined yet again this week when an Albany couple, who milk the 20 goats that graze on their 3ha block, won the country's top cheesemaker's award. Jan and John Walter's Old Gold goats' cheese was named supreme winner at the Cuisine NZ Champion of Cheese Awards.
"We knew the basic recipe was milk and rennet," said Mrs Walter modestly, "so we just kept playing around with that until we got it right."
Sadly for cheese-lovers, Old Gold won't be for sale at the local supermarket. The farm's 2kg-a-day output all goes to restaurants and a few boutique shops. But the Walters are standard-bearers in a proud tradition: good things start small - and the very best things are often those that stay that way.
