Getting the year off to a promising start, this new cheese makes me hopeful that America’s small dairy farms can find a way forward. We are losing these enterprises at an alarming rate—down 95 percent since the 1970s. Is that trend line irreversible, or are there viable models for young people who want to milk cows and make cheese? My recent conversation with the cheesemaker behind this handsome tomme illuminates how one family makes it work. “Our choice has been to diversify rather than to get bigger,” says cheesemaker Melanie Webb.
Swallow Tail Tomme (pictured above) from Vermont’s Stony Pond Farm is a seasonal farmstead product, made only from May through September when the cows are on grass. The milk is organic and raw, going straight from the milking parlor to the cheese vat. The farm crew practices rotational grazing, moving the cows to new paddocks every 12 hours so they don’t exhaust the land. Could there be any more eco-friendly buzzwords in this paragraph?
Farm family: Melanie, Tyler, Willow and Wyatt Webb
Melanie and her husband, Tyler Webb, both first-generation farmers, appear to have a handle on their dream, but they have invested two decades in rejuvenating the decrepit dairy farm that Tyler bought. Cheesemaking is the last piece of the puzzle. Tyler, a university-trained agronomist, first had to restore the tired pastures, build a herd (mostly Jerseys and Devons) and install the infrastructure—fences, paddocks, water systems—that makes everything work on this 300-acre parcel.
For years, the couple sold their fluid milk to the Organic Valley co-op, but they had no income source in the off season. Melanie talked Tyler into the cheese experiment and found a mentor at a neighboring farm. Doe’s Leap owner Kristan Doolan tutored her, helped her develop the tomme recipe and gave her space in the Doe’s Leap aging cellar. By 2020, the Webbs had their own on-farm creamery.
Swallow Tail Tomme takes inspiration from the rustic village tommes of France, like Tomme de Savoie. The rind is firm, crusty with mold and marked by the draining basket. The interior has that rich butter color that shouts “grass fed” and an aroma of damp cave, nuts and cut grass. The paste is open, not compact, and creamy on the tongue. The flavor is buttery and of medium intensity, on a spectrum of delicate to strong. I’ve purchased it twice—from the same store and possibly from the same wheel—and thought it was on the brink of too salty, but another wheel might not seem so. Aging is three to six months for these four- to five-pound wheels.
American cheese made with raw milk is not a growing niche, so it’s encouraging to have such an appealing new entry. Swallow Tail Tomme and Stony Pond’s two other cheeses bring revenue to the farm in winter, when its 60 cows aren’t being milked. Two cottages on the farm—both short-term rentals for city folks who want to experience farm life—contribute as well.
“There’s always that pressure in dairy farming to milk more cows and we don’t want to do that,” says Melanie. “We want a sustainable farm that works within our land base.”
Look for Swallow Tail Tomme at these retailers. In addition, you may find it at Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco, Sonoma Cheese Factory in Sonoma (CA), Sunshine Foods in St. Helena (CA), Paste & Rind in Washington, DC, Second Mouse in Pleasantville (NY), Bedford Cheese Shop in New York City, Cornerstone Cheese in Wayne (PA) and Food & Thought in Naples (FL).