Filomena Martínez (Minina) and her sister Mari Luz saved one of the most traditional cheeses of Asturias: the Quesu d’Ee outside Pitu, the “Queisu”. Born in the town of Cubia, in Ca Floriento, in the council of Grau, these two very very much knew that within those rags where the leftover milk was recounted, something much bigger was resting.
They were some girls when they learned from their mother Maria Sabel to make the “Queisu”, something that everyone did in their homes, but that they turned into the formula to carry out their families. His father, who was always a visionary and an advanced to his time, rebelled against the low prices that paid them for milk, so when Minina told him that it was almost better to do cheese and try to see if someone loved them Buy at the Mercáu de Grau, which is celebrated every Sunday, José, his father; He told him the phrase that they would remember hundreds of times throughout his life: “You don’t worry while you have at home.” And the “queisu” saved them tens of times.
Today, with 76 years Mari Luz and with 74 minina, they know that thanks to them their daughters continue with the trade, which continues to be equally traditional and craftsman, a trade that was able to dazzle these three heirs, Ana García, Isabel García and Marta Fernández; That after finishing their careers, they chose to continue in the cheese, putting the “queisu” in the sweeps with the Garciella, clenching the rags and selling them in the markets.
The Ca Sanchu and Borbolla cheeses are the only two in Asturias that produce only QUESU d’Euven They were afraid to continue selling it in the stage in which their sale was prohibited. Or they may be afraid, but they did it with fear. There were people who did not do things well, but others did, with the same love and careful, remember.
“Then the Principality Government prohibited its sale, it did not matter how badly. They said that we were equally dangerous as rapeseed oil. They fined people for having the Queisu in their stores, I remember that a lord of Oviedo was put a fine of forty thousand pesetas for dispatching him in the store. We gave them hidden, covered with a cloth. Once the one who was mayor of Grau, José Sierra, put me with me to sell it in the middle of Mercáu. I do not forget in life… ”, says Minina.
These two sisters who were born fourteen months of difference now look at the “queisu” with a double sensation. They love him, because he allowed them to live an economically better life; And they suffer, because that production exit from their homes without any means made them live a lifetime dedicated to cheese, without Sundays or holidays, and taking a year to weave a sweater for their son because “there was no time for anything else,” Minina says.
Market Sundays Mari Luz rose at four in the morning to pair Persianas waking up to go to take the vermou or buy a queisu, Mari Luz raised a feeling from the guts that oppressed her, when could she sleep on a Sunday morning? When could she sit in front of television half an hour? Can now.
They would be five years old when they did the first one. Then the lives of each one were on their way, although they never separated. Mari Luz married 18 years and went down to live in Grau.
I remember that I got home and left in mother and sneakers to buy three cubes, I made the furations at home with one tip and, the next day, I took the first three cheeses. I seem to see them … they were beautiful. I had not forgotten the recipe
“There was a position in the square where we got the dairy to sell, but every time he was going to less. The industrial milks and then Rosa de la Portiella became fashionable, she said that she was going to take the milk for home and facer thatisu. I didn’t remember the recipe well and since there was no phone, I couldn’t call Minina to tell me how much rennet had to be thrown in a liter of milk. I remember that I got home and left in mother and sneakers to buy three cubes, I made the furations at home with one tip and, the next day, I took the first three cheeses. I seem to see them … they were beautiful. I had not forgotten the recipe, ”says Mari Luz raising her hands in parallel, smoothly like her cheeses.
And while the older sister recovered the recipe of her childhood at her home in Grau, the little girl went down to the market with the cheeses involved in a two -storey basket that her father had designed. “If for my father we were all career. He was the first to buy a tractor in Cubia and always supported us, ”they explain. With 23 years Minina married and spent five years without doing cheese.
“I don’t know very well to tell you why, but the fact is that my husband said one day that he wanted to make a big block for cows in our house in Ambás and it was an important investment. We were going to put ourselves in often chickpea! And Minina returned to Mercáu to Grau and made the recipe, the same as her sister, to dedicate himself again to the day and night.
After the prohibition of the sale of the administration’s regulations: the labeling, pasteurization of milk and the denomination of protected origin. In 1992 the first sticker that identified the Queisu de la Borbolla and that of Ca Sanchu was placed. It was also the first time that the Queisu forever adopted the name of the outside.
“Once I was at my mother’s house they knocked on the door. He was a countryman or at least that seemed to me, who was an older countryman … I had to be six or seven years old. He told me that he was coming because he wanted to buy Mom a Quesu d’eachga’l Pitu. I didn’t know what I was talking about. I knew we did thatisu, but we had never called him like that. We had no idea what we did outside, ”explains Isabel.
A August 6, 2003, the date on which the denomination of protected origin, Minina and Mari Luz were fully aware that that cheese, his cheeisu, was for the first time in the place that corresponded to him.
And in that place, living that recognition should also be, and it is somehow, his sister Carmina, who also fell in her home in Bulse, in Salas. Because in Florento they all learned the recipe that was going to save the economy, they all saw that milk in the rag, but what the Queisu could prevent Carmina from dying, but returns in the memory of Cubia’s kitchen, where Pota coffee and anise drops are served, and all cheese, mothers and daughters, share united anecdotes, tight with the same force as a rag that embraces a Queisu.
Today, Minina and Mari Luz come to their daughters from a quiet look. They are proud to continue with the trade and that they have been able to mark a schedule and have a compatible life with the Queisu. Gone are the lives of total sacrifice of these two women who without any merit have everything.
In October of last year, these cheese artisans received the “Oro’s Pitu Pitu” award granted A contest in honor of this cheese, although it is in Grau where it is most done. “The handsome thing about this cheese is that it was always a popular cheese, you eat in all the houses and it is the cheese that most fame,” the artisans say.
Today there are seven cheeses that produce this variety of cheese in Asturias, a cheese that was about to disappear, with a practically testimonial production as a result of the restrictions imposed from the Ministry of Health. The only cheese of Asturias that has its name in Asturianu …
“We have a romantic idea of the Queisu, I always say that I am an artisan and not entrepreneur. We want to live with dignity, but without speculating and we do it at the right price, ”says Marta, daughter of Minina; And her cousin Ana nods, while recognizing that every day at half past six in the morning she is in the cheese doing what she likes: Queisu. “We stop from the books to the Garciella,” he says. And delighted.
Now that Minina no longer drinks coffee to stay awake, now that Mari Luz sits to watch TV and can even get up early on Sunday … Now the three heirs of the Queisu are still going to the market every Sunday. They may not realize the value that a witness has and maintain the level that their mothers left.
But one day someone will call their doors and will no longer hesitate to tell any countryman that yes, that the one whoisu d’Oega’l Pitu is manufactured there, and that as long as there is also life.
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