#ticinomoments 2020

32 #ticinomoments
The alarm rings at 4.45. A mountain farmer’s
life is not easy. The cows are foddered and
quiet at dawn, then they’re brought out of the
shed and milked. In summer there’s hay to
be made. There’s always so much to do every
day, work to be planned, invoices and admin
to be completed, new ideas and sales points
to come up with. “Rhythm is fundamental”,
says Doris with a beautiful smile.
A COW ON HER SHOULDER
She’s young, friendly and cheerful, but also
decisive, knowing exactly what she wants.
Doris and her sister Marina grew up on their
parents’ farm and a love of the mountains,
livestock and the land forms part of their DNA.
You can see it in Doris’s eyes, words, gestures,
the passion that she conveys and... in a tattoo!
The face of Karin, one of her cows, features
on Doris’s shoulder: “Another cow is actually
my favourite, but she’s definitely the prettiest.”
They’re Braunvieh cows, a sturdy medium
breed with a brown hide and a darker muzzle
and hooves. This native breed used to be very
widespread on the Swiss mountains, but was
later replaced by other more productive breeds,
albeit less suited to the harsh mountain
winters. The Braunvieh produces excellent
meat and around 4-5,000 kg of milk per year,
much less than the 10,000 kg produced by a
Brown Swiss. However, Doris’s cows with their
beautiful horns and a cow bell are symbolic
of the Alps. Ready for a selfie?
FROM PASTURE TO CELLAR
The mountain landscape, with its green pastures
alternating with woods, makes the scenery in
Ticino truly unique. It’s beautiful to see and
immortalise, but first and foremost it has a
fundamental role to play: this is where hay is
made, an invaluable winter food for livestock.
From May to September, Doris and her family
perform an activity well-known to mountain
farmers: the haymaking marathon. They spend
several weeks cutting numerous pastures
situated between 500 and 1,700 m a.s.l. They
go over every plot two or three times and
good weather is essential, otherwise the hay
is ruined. It’s a real marathon.
Without the friendly and rather sleepy-looking
cows grazing placidly there would be no cheese.
And without Doris in her dairy, who transforms
the milk into that tasty round every two days,
we wouldn’t be able to try this mountain speciality.
“Everyone in the family used to make
cheese, but when we bought the new boiler
I became the official cheesemaker because
my parents didn’t want to get to grips with
the touch controls and my sister was away
studying.” You have to take the milk temperature,
the air humidity, the salt level and lots
of other variables into account to make a good
cheese, as they can all affect its flavour. “I had
to do lots of experiments before finding the
perfect formula.” We ask her how she feels
when people appreciate a cheese she’s made
with her own hands. “I find it very satisfying,
but criticism is even more important for me,
so that I can keep improving.” Her ambitious
spirit is clear to see.
ONE WEEK’S HOLIDAY PER YEAR
“The assistants who’ve worked on the family
farm over the years have included people who
loved running in the mountains or triathlons,
but even they struggled to keep up with us.”
Resilience and passion are fundamental in
this line of work, “otherwise you simply can't
make so many sacrifices.” And so how does
Doris recharge her batteries? “I try to make
sure I keep one week free a year to go away,
relax and, above all, keep an open mind.” This
is a very important aspect that is immediately
apparent when talking to Doris about her desire
to discover and learn more about other
farms, to come up with new ideas and develop
projects for improving her business. She wants
to increase direct product sales, cut down
slightly on the number of cows to optimise
production and design a new cowshed.
There’s nothing more to be said about it: Doris
is a dreamer with her feet firmly on the ground.
01
Savouring the mountain
Doris doesn’t just offer an excellent softripened
cheese and tasty alpine cheese.
Her small family-run farm and guesthouse
in Largario also produces milk, veal, lamb
and sausages of various kinds
(aziendamartinali-valblenio.ch).
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