One of the “must-see” markets in Berlin is the Turkish market in Kreuzberg, held along the canal by the Schönleinstraße U-bahn stop. There’s a sizable Turkish population in the city, and to serve them, this semi-weekly market (Tuesdays and Fridays) offers special breads, spices, vegetables, household items, cloth, and more. There are also some great specialty jams, waffles, prepared meals from several African cuisines, and cheeses.

This guest blog series is by Andy Swinscoe, who recently opened The Courtyard Dairy in North Yorkshire, England.

Part Two - getting it open.

I quickly realized that what I thought was hard – finding the location – was in fact the easy bit. It was now November and I had my work cut out: I had to equip the shop, get it open before Christmas, and get people to know about it. All in less than a month. It’s a good thing I had some contacts and had spent four years planning!

This guest blog series is by Andy Swinscoe, who recently opened The Courtyard Dairy in North Yorkshire, England.

Part One - choosing the right place

I wanted a cheese shop. Somewhere where I could sell the best cheese and mature/refine it as well.

But I couldn’t find where to locate it. To return to the north of England was the idea, if only to cut down on the refrigeration bills, but the north of England is not full of plentiful affluent suburbs like the home counties, full of people who would buy the cheese I wanted to sell.

Photo courtesy of Lactography
Carlos is a cheese expert and PhD candidate in politics who divides his time between New York and Mexico City. He's also a co-founder of Lactography, an organization that works to preserve Mexican cheesemaking traditions by developing regional trademarks and supplying local cheeses to markets and restaurants in Mexican cities.

Last summer, immediately after attending the Science of Artisan Cheese conference, I had the chance to visit Will and Caroline Atkinson at Hill Farm Dairy, located in Somerset in the south west of England.

Neither Caroline or Will came from farming backgrounds. The concept for a goat dairy and cheesemaking facility developed as a result of Caroline's passion for cheese, ignited after working at Neal's Yard Dairy in London. Both were keen to move to the countryside and, in 2007, after an 18 month period where Caroline apprenticed with Mary Holbrook at the nearby and highly regarded Sleight Farm, while Will continued his job as a lawyer in Bristol, the couple decided to quit their respective jobs and move to the heart of Somerset with a view to making cheese from the milk of their own goats.

This the second part to my two-part exploration of geographical indications in Mexico. The first part is here.

Armed with knowledge about the areas of the law described in my last post, an understanding of the people and cheesemakers of Mexico, and a tenacious spirit, Carlos Yescas is working toward a system that will recognize the traditional cheeses of Mexico and give them the status similar to that of the AOC system in France.

As some of you may know, by day, I am a trademark/copyright lawyer. It’s not every day that I get to go into detail about BOTH cheese and trademark law with the same person, so imagine my delight at speaking with Carlos Yescas, co-owner of Lactography whose name regularly crops up on Culture. Lactography’s team, consisting of experts in accounting, logistics, food production, and safety, among other fields, is largely devoted to promoting artisanal Mexican cheeses in the United States. Outside of the cheese world, he is a trained lawyer (in Ireland) and is currently working toward his doctorate degree at the New School for Social Research in New York City.