There are aged cheddars out there older than the Quesos y Besos cheese shop. The small operation is tucked unassumingly into a line of industrial warehouses in a rural Spanish village called Guarromán, in the southern region of Andalusia. But a step into the operation, a taste of the award-winning product, and a recount of their story, are an inarguable testament to their quick rise to stardom.
Background
Silvia Peláez and Paco Romero are high school sweethearts and natives of this area of Jaén, one of the most prolific olive-growing regions of Andalusia. Silvia comes from a family of farmers, and Paco from a family of goat ranchers. Yet their career paths led them away from rural life and up north to Zaragoza to work for the same chemical engineering company—Silvia as an engineer, and Paco as a shift manager.
It was there in Zaragoza, with their second child in tow, that they began to understand their collective need to be connected to the land, get away from the city, and move closer to family. Paco had the brilliant idea (though friends and family didn’t use that adjective) to move back home and learn how to make cheese with his family’s goats. “It was a crazy idea to me,” says Silvia. “We knew there would be so much training involved.”
Silvia had made cheese with her mother and grandmother growing up and exchanged it with neighbors— a common practice in the rural area— but her knowledge was minimal. Even so, they dove in. They began visiting other cheesemakers and taking courses all over Spain. It was an exciting but challenging time for the couple. They were parenting two kids, spending time separated as a family, and in the midst of it, Silvia’s father was also battling cancer. “I would go to the class in the morning and spend the afternoon crying,” said Silvia.
Lactic Style Cheesemaking
Their love for the craft and desire to create a different life for their family kept them moving. The couple immediately fell in love with lactic style cheesemaking, or lactic acid coagulation, a method in which the raw milk’s natural lactic bacteria is developed in order to ferment and replicate it like a bread starter, and then added to fresh milk to help it coagulate. The couple knew it would be challenging to find the right market for this style in Spain, an area mostly dominated by enzymatic and hard-aged cheeses like Manchego. But that did not stop them.
“Spain – Benalmádena – Paloma Park – Malaga goat” by muffinn is marked with CC BY 2.0. photo
Quesos y Besos Cheeses
In August 2017 they started with their first cheese, the “Olavida,” a lactic style cheese made from Paco’s Malagueño goats. The cheese has a signature dark line through the center, a French technique in which ashes (in this case olive pit ashes) are sprinkled over the first layer of curd to prevent excess humidity and maintain a creamy texture.
Less than a year later, in May of 2018, Silvia and Paco’s Olavida was awarded the best cheese in Spain. The cheesemakers were dumbfounded: “You don’t even really know your cheese yet!” said Silvia. In other words, they hadn’t even been able to see how the milk changed throughout four whole seasons and to adapt their style accordingly.
A Rollercoaster Year
Fast forward to 2020. The couple both came down with Covid-19, a professional travesty for cheesemakers, who need their senses on high alert at all times. Unable to properly smell or taste their cheese, they blindly sent the prettiest piece to competition in Italy. They won first place.
2021 unveiled even bigger surprises than Silvia and Paco could have imagined. Their beloved Olavida won “Best Cheese in the World” at the World Cheese Awards in Oviedo, Spain. Not only that, but it was the first time in World Cheese history that two cheeses from the same dairy placed in the top 16; their camembert, “Camembeso,” placed 6th.
With the most coveted award in their pockets, it would seem that the future for Silvia and Paco is somewhat undefined—they’ve hit the top, so what else is left? “We don’t have this idea that we’ve hit the ceiling,” said Silvia. “Our vision is that we keep improving.” The work is just beginning for Quesos y Besos: “We got back from Oviedo, we put the trophy on the shelf, we both put on our work clothes, and continued on just like before.”
The Future of Quesos y Besos
And plans for expansion? That’s just not the vision. Silvia’s cousin, for example, encouraged them to grow the business and is convinced he could turn them into millionaires. But they know the product would suffer and so would their quality of life. “My way of seeing it is different,” says Silvia. “Am I wrong? I don’t know. But this makes me happier.”
Silvia and Paco view their work as an opportunity to bring their families together and to educate their children, who get an intimate look into their hard work and sacrifice. The couple is also able to provide a living wage to Paco’s sister and a few other workers, who, because of the traditionally low and volatile pay in the industry, would not have been able to take over the goat farming when Paco’s father retired. “We raise our prices, yes,” says Silvia. “Because we pay our workers a fair price.”
You can’t find Quesos and Besos anywhere in the U.S., and, because of the style of cheese and a loyalty to local clientele, you probably never will. But luckily for the folks in Spain (and the lucky visitors passing through), Silvia and Paco will likely continue to win awards. More importantly, they will continue to stay connected to the land, to the product, and to build their lives around their craft. They will, as they do every Sunday, give the milk delivery guy the day off and take the kids to the goat farm—stopping to enjoy the countryside, having lunch with their families, and bringing milk back to the shop for the next week’s work. “We see it like that,” says Silvia. “A way of life.”