Will Studd’s Beautiful New Documentary Series Is What Cheese Dreams Are Made Of

When I call Will Studd at his Byron Bay home, Australia’s pre-eminent cheese expert is distracted by the chimney sweeper tending to his fireplace.

“I was transfixed by his gold tooth,” he laughs, “But that’s not why you’re ringing, is it?”

I’m actually ringing to talk about Studd’s other fixation, one that’s captured his attention for more than 50 years. We’re talking about cheese and Studd’s new SBS documentary series Cheese: Searching for a Taste of Place, in which the grand high cheese lord shines a light on artisans going to “extraordinary lengths” to keep traditional cheesemaking alive.

“It’s cheese that’s got a story, cheese that talks to you,” he tells Broadsheet. “It’s about interesting cheese and the people who make it. They’re almost more interesting than the cheese.”

In one episode, Studd visits a Wisconsin cheesemaker who knows his cow’s milk is ready by smelling the cow’s “sweet and herbaceous” breath. In another, he tours England’s last remaining farmhouse producing Lancashire cheese from raw milk. In another, he visits one of four remaining Greek barrel makers, whose vessels are used to age feta the way shepherds did centuries ago.

“The great thing about travelling with a [film] crew and looking at cheese is that we get access to all areas, which you don’t get if you’re a visitor,” he says. “I’ve got a curious mind, so we were always turning up things we didn’t know.”

As much as the series is a celebration of cheese, it’s also a cautionary tale: commercial cheese production requires milk to be produced as cheaply as possible, which has implications for cattle breed diversity and milk quality. Consequently, the use of raw, unpasteurised milk in cheesemaking is heavily regulated around the world, especially in Australia.

“France has more fromageries than [it has] McDonalds,” says Studd. “Those fromageries primarily sell 80 per cent raw-milk cheese. You want to know why we don’t have fromageries in Australia? Well, we’ve got crazy regulations.”

Studd is emphatic about the role terroir plays in artisan cheesemaking, a concept that’s traditionally reserved for the wine world.

“There are parallels there, 100 per cent, but [Australia] struggles with the concept in the sense that we’re relatively new to the concept of specialty cheese. The tyranny of distance means that we’re a country that’s commodity exports. Cheese is a natural, fermented product, and the more you look at the natural world, the more you realise the role it plays in making traditional artisan cheese. It doesn’t apply in industrial, bland, predictable cheese.

“There’s nothing wrong with bland industrial cheese because it feeds people. But it would be a shame if we lost touch with the great traditions out there.”

Will Studd has waxed lyrical about cheese for more than 50 years on screen and on the page. But he’s calling Searching for a Taste of Place his legacy project.

“I’ve made more TV about cheese than anyone on the planet. Everyone I know has either disappeared, died or retired. But I’m still trying to put artisan cheese at its rightful place at the table.

Cheese: Searching for a Taste of Place premieres 5.30pm Sunday April 20 on SBS Food and SBS on Demand.