With bread or with cookies, with arepas or sada roti, with cachapas or roti, in empanadas or aloo pies – in any Venezuelan or Trinidadian dish, white cheese has been adding to the cuisine of Trinidad and Tobago.
The art of making Venezuelan-style cheese, traditionally produced from either raw or pasteurised milk, is now practised here for the enjoyment of locals as well as Venezuelans.
One of the main exponents is Alexander Plaza, 42, a Venezuelan-Trinidadian who settled here 18 years ago after experiencing life in various countries in Europe.
His Trinidadian mother, Melva Azocar, led him to settle permanently in his second country, TT, where he now has a family of his own: his wife Evelyn and his three children: Caleb, 12, Isaac, ten, and Eleazar, seven.
Plaza knows Venezuelans have an addiction to white cheese, which is not frequently made in other countries – hence his idea of making it also part of Trinidadian cuisine.
[caption id="attachment_906545" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Alexander Plaza sells his white cheese at supermarkets in TT - Marvin Hamilton[/caption]
"When I came to Trinidad, I spent several years without going to Venezuela. During that time my mother travelled once and I asked her to bring me white cheese – but she couldn't get it through Customs and I was left wanting it."
This desire for the taste of his homeland prompted Plaza to learn about white cheese, until eventually he became an expert cheesemaker.
“Fifteen years ago I called a friend in Venezuela who knew how to make white cheese and he gave me a simple explanation, and from that moment I began to try. I made contacts here with owners of farms that had cows and I bought the milk to make my cheese on weekends,” Plaza remembered.
His family and close friends were the first to taste his semi-hard white cheeses.
“Through many tests of taste and texture, each step and quantity of ingredients was written down until I found the exact formula. Then I began to offer it to other friends, and word spread in Trinidad. Since then I have not stopped."
Venezuela is the Latin American country – and perhaps a world leader – with the greatest variety of fresh cheeses,producing at least 30 different types, of which 60 per cent are handmade.
"In Venezuela, cheese is eaten in many forms and in many varieties, but in Trinidad, as it's a different product from the traditional yellow cheese the locals consume, I decided to only dedicate myself to a few derivatives," Plaza said.
[caption id="attachment_906538" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Alexandar Plaza and his son get ready to make a batch of white cheese - Marvin Hamilton[/caption]
He makes semi-hard cheese, ricotta (creamier unsalted cheese), whey (liquid), yogurt, mozarella and telita.
From his studies of milk, Plaza realised he had to perfect his technique and that led him to pasteurise his products.
"I did a lot of tests, from milking the cows to eliminating pathogens to hel
