Olive, the cheesemaker

It isn’t the first time I have been there really — but it’s the first time I truly appreciated the place because of the people I met in my latest trip to Davao. One woman based in Davao is Olive Puentespina, the creator of Malagos cheese, which we use in our salads and pasta dishes at Le Bistro Vert Sustainable Foods. I say “creator” because she literally taught herself the art of cheese making and innovated ways and means to create all-Filipino cheese! We just had to see her and have some of her wonderful freshly-made cheeses. She was agitated when we met up with her, as she was ready to bring out her new baby — a cheese she calls “blush,” which took all of two months to ripen and age. Behind the very passionately meticulous, creatively innovative Filipina is a woman who is proudly nationalistic. “I am saving dollars for the country as I develop my cheeses. Filipinos need not go abroad to buy imported cheese but now can have Malagos cheese made in Davao!” And boy, did we have a wonderful afternoon of drinking sparkling white wine and cheese tasting. It was like a scene in Europe, except that what surrounded us were shrubs, fruit trees indigenous to Davao, and the hot tropical Philippine sun. She brought out her blue peppato cheese, which is green peppercorns aged in blue molds, a kind of Roquefort made from cow’s milk. Swiss style cheese, soft cheeses also all made their way out to us on a tray.

Cheese making is an art with a solid science behind it. The accomplishments of this passionate woman, our country’s first cheesemaker has been documented and told: of how she has won awards, how local chefs stand behind her, support and work with her, how foreign cheesemakers and experts have given her the pat on the back for innovation and how her cheese stand up to any international cheesemaker’s produce. She tells us that she has told her husband that the first thing he needs to do if she dies is to go to her cheese room and find the protocols diary. It’s in this notebook where she has documented everything she has done, her researches and experimentation, in her years of cheese making. Today, her cheeses that come under the Malagos brand are testimony of Filipino passion, innovation, creativity and talent. “I believe I was made for something more than just to be a wife and a mother,” she says. Now, Olive Puentespina is the fairy godmother who sprinkles her laboratory magic on the milk and turns them into 16 kinds of cheese including the Fresh Goat Cheese more popularly known as Kesong Puti; Chevre or French-style cheese; Blue Goat Cheese, a young goat cheese, mildly aged with blue mold; Blue Pepato, mildly aged cow’s milk cheese with whole green pepper corn; Feta, made from pure goats milk, aged in brine; and the Blush, a young semi soft cow’s milk cheese, aged with both white and blue mold.

This fare goes well with cheese.

Olive’s passion even goes beyond cheese and includes the care of their family farm called Puentespina Orchid and Tropical Plants Farms, started by her mother-in-law, Charita Puentespina in 1977. It’s more than just the flowers now though, as the farm has expanded to so much more. Their family’s continuous advocacy is for farmers to plant more cacao for export due to the demand that one plantation cannot meet. Olive tells us that Mars Cocoa Development Center needs about 100,000 metric tons of quality cacao beans by 2015 to 2020. For the past two years, they have been consolidating their cacao beans with other cacao producers and exporting them… unable at this point to even meet the demand.

Puentespina Farms is the family’s stewardship and love for nature. Charisse Puentespina, Olive’s sister-in-law, manages the farm that has dairy goats, cows, sheep, cocks, horses, peacocks, pheasants, ostriches, fancy chickens, dogs, and ornamental birds, fruit trees, indigenous plants. The Puentespina family pioneered the farm fairs in Davao where they sell their produce but also allow other farmers and animal growers to see how the farm works. The family is a strict observer of sustainable farm management so there is zero waste in the farm as everything is re-used, sold and recycled. This aspect of operations has actually made the place as an agri-tourism destination for best practices. The part of the farm they call the Malagos Garden Resort has become popular not only in Davao but in Manila, thanks to the bird show held in the resort regularly on Sundays. Across this is the nine-hectare Puentespina Orchid Gardens that are not only ornamental but is a thriving cut-flower business for the family who now supplies the country. Visitors come to see the menagerie of animals and birds that roam free. City folks are given an authentic experience of nature’s breathing, producing, moving beauty while sustainably allowing businesses to thrive and prosper.