Formaggio per favore!
Category: Interview
| Title | Formaggio per favore! |
|---|---|
| Interviewer | Country Life RNZ |
| Interviewee | Emilio Festa |
| Producer | Radio New Zealand (RNZ) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Language | English |
| Geographic reference | Christchurch, Canterbury |
| Time reference | 2014 |
| Online resource | Yes |
| Topic | Radio, Italian cheesemakers in New Zealand, Cheese, Italian farmers in New Zealand |
You can find the interview here
Interview for Country Life, RNZ, with Emilio Festa, an Italian cheesemaker who won the New Zealand Champion of Cheese Award for 2014. Festa is a recent immigrant who came to New Zealand in 2005 from the province of Brescia with a dream of making cheese. After selling their property in Italy in 2008, Emilio and his wife Adriana bought a small cropping farm near West Melton in Canterbury and, four years later, built a custom-made cheese factory in the farmyard. As well as growing barley and lucerne, Emilio makes over 20 types of Italian style cheese. In the interview, which was held in Emilio's cheese factory, he explains that he invented some new names for his cheeses made in New Zealand to respect the DOP (Denominazione di Origine Protetta, which means Protected Designation of Origin) of the traditional cheeses made in Italy. The DOP guarantees that the milk and the cheese production are from a certain location in Italy. Emilio, who won several more prizes since this 2014 interview, sells his cheeses to restaurants and at farmers' markets throughout Canterbury, you can find a 2019 image of his stall at the Lincoln Farmers Market and a short piece about Festa and his son Enrico meeting Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall on Newshub. The piece is entitled Canterbury cheesemaker tickles royal taste buds.
