Omnivore - Cheese maker profile: Sequatchie Cove Farm

A new chapter in Southern cheese making


The southern United States has a rich culinary history. Cheese making, however, is not a chapter in the encyclopedia of Southern cuisine. But in the last 14 to 20 years, the cheesy story is finally being written: Artisan cheese-making industry in the South is taking root. Sweetgrass Dairy in Thomasville and Sweet Home Farm in Elberta, Ala., are a couple of the forefathers of the Southern cheese-making business. Dairies and creameries are starting to pop up all over the Southeast.

One of the more recent additions is Sequatchie Cove Creamery in Sequatchie, Tenn., at Sequatchie Cove Farm. There’s nothing new about Sequatchie Farm, where beef, pork and produce have been raised for many years. In the last year it’s added cheese making to its repertoire. March marked its one-year anniversary as a licensed cheese-making facility.

The farm is a short drive out I-24 West from Chattanooga and is surrounded by the Cumberland Plateau, the Little Sequatchie River and endless acres of Tennessee forest. Cheese maker Nathan Arnold, a longtime Sequatchie Cove employee and native, took a couple of short cheese-making courses at the University of Vermont and in Guelph, Ontario. Then Arnold began a tour of cheese-making regions and visited people that he felt could guide him on his path to cheesy nirvana. Arnold spent time cutting the curd with some of America’s top cheese makers as well.






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