This is the Story of Hawkwood Gourmet Foods.
Hawkwood Smoked Cheese was born out of a passion of food.
Tommy loved his barbecues and had five cookers in his outdoor kitchen – A Weber of course, two hot smokers - gas and electric - a charcoal rotisserie, and a Canadian 5 burner CharBroil for when you need to crank something out in a hurry. He had always wanted to get involved with cheese and one day when he replaced his gas smoking oven which had given up the ghost he was just about to scrap it and suddenly had a brainwave to turn it into a cold smoker for cheese! It was perfect – had all the racks – it could take about 80 blocks in one hit.
After attaching an external smoke generator to the outside he started researching smoking cheese – different types of cheese required different types of wood chip – it looked all quite daunting, but he decided the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
After gathering an array of cheeses and woodchips Tommy’s outdoor kitchen turned into a smokehouse with trials of cheeses with different woodchips. Everyone he knew got a sample block to taste with the request for brutal, critical feedback. Then came the woodchip blends – even different size blocks of cheese made a subtle difference. Gradually a recipe was forming.
One day he got a call from someone who he considered a ‘connoisseur’ when it came to cheese – and his biggest critic – and he said, “Tommy, that last batch you did – don’t change a thing – it is absolutely delicious”.
Well, there you go. You’ve got to start somewhere but you’ve also got to stop somewhere. Just enjoy Hawkwood Smoked Cheese. All hand- and batch-smoked to a recipe but each batch is unique – and all delicious. How’s that for backyard and Kiwi?
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