Rockweed cheese. (Courtesy photo)
Conjure an image of Maine and one will picture its rocky seaweed-covered coast. Rockweed cheese made by Lakin’s Gorges Cheese in Waldoboro, instills that essence of the shore by wrapping a ribbon of dried seaweed in a creamy cheese body.
Rockweed has just won a Gold Medal, Best of Class in the “soft ripened, flavored” category at the World Championship Cheese Contest.
Hosted biennially by the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association since 1957, it is the largest technical cheese, butter, yogurt, and dry dairy ingredient competition in the world. In 2022, a total of 2,919 entries were submitted across 141 classes by cheesemakers from 28 countries and 33 states.
Allison Lakin started making cheese in 2002, a second career, having worked in museums after graduating from Cornell University. She founded Lakin’s Gorges Cheese in 2011, building the business in space she rented from another cheesemaker and buying milk from a single farmer.
In 2017 she relocated to her farm in Waldoboro and built a custom creamery that includes two caves for the cheese “affinage,” where the turning and grooming and aging of cheese happens. The farm has enough land to graze cows and she has been building up a herd of Jersey cows that will be the sole source of milk in the summer of 2022.
The farm has been in continuous use since 1774 and stretches down to the Long Cove on the Medomak River. While all of her cheeses are original recipe, she wanted to create a cheese that was a taste of this place and took inspiration from the seaweed-covered shore.
Rockweed has a bloomy rind with a faint green ribbon of seaweed in the center. The seaweed imparts a gentle brinyness that blends beautifully with the creamy, decadent body. Made in a half pound, square wheel, it’s also visually pleasing.
The cheese is available in retail markets around Maine and Boston and is served at many Maine restaurants.
For more information, go to lakinsgorgescheese.com.
