For many of us, the holidays revolve around food, old favorites and new.  The Valley now boasts a growing number of artisan food businesses: small establishments that turn out a limited amount of their savory treats.  These very small (for now) businesses bring a professional consistency to fresh, flavorful  foods that you love to eat, week after week.

The food produced by these passionate connoisseurs can be found both at farmers markets and at the restaurants that advocate eating fresh, local products. If you have come to appreciate the goodness of locally grown tomatoes and lettuce — and citrus, of course — it’s time to open your mouth for our home-grown cheeses, nuts, honeys and barbeque sauces along with cakes, breads and tamales.

Fresh cheeses

The gruyere cheese Adam Thompson has melted in a fondue pot sends tendrils of enticing aroma through a Valley farmers market. Thompson got serious about making goat cheese 18 months ago, so he  increased his Alpine goat herd and bought cheese-making equipment. Now the artisan goat cheeses and mozzarella he makes at his South Texas Cheese Factory cannot keep up with demand.

Thompson’s herd of Alpine goats produces about 30 gallons of milk per day.  By March 2015, he expects to double the number of goats being milked.  Alpine milk contains the lowest fat content of all the milks humans consume, he noted.

“We have a couple standard cheeses we make all the time,” Thompson said, noting that his cheeses are not the typical, soft goat cheese. Instead the raw goat milk is shaped into eight-pound wheels destined to become hard, aged cheeses: Romano, gouda (Asche), gruyere, cheddar and fontina. “A couple of commercial accounts we are developing buy a wheel a week,” Thompson said. He projects growing until they are making 250-350 pounds per week. Cheddars, for example, age for three to five months in a climate-controlled aging room.

South Texas Cheese Factory is inspected and licensed by the Texas Department of Health Services, as is the goat dairy. While pasteurization kills harmful bacteria, it also kills beneficial bacteria. “We believe that natural, unaltered milk produces a superior cheese that retains the natural components that are part of the beauty of cheese,” Thompson said.  His cheeses, made with cheese maker Petros  Jaferis, are aged at least two months “which is sufficient time to destroy any harmful bacteria,” according to the health department.

South Texas Cheese Factory buys local cow’s milk and makes about 100 pounds of mozzarella weekly. “We’re not limited with that one, since we outsource the milk,” he explained.  The fresh cheeses are formed into balls and sold plain, or flavored with garlic and rosemary or six peppers, or made in paneer style. New on the menu is a mold-ripened cheese, similar to brie.

Saucy

Musician and entrepreneur Lamar Jones developed The Jank barbecue sauce around 2010.  He has used a musician-friend’s restaurant kitchen to make up the gourmet sauce, which is known as “so good you can put it on cake.”  This fall Jones won a $10,000 innovation grant competition from the McAllen Chamber of Commerce, which is enabling him to take his business to the next level.

The Jank is in the midst of lab testing to determine calories, shelf life and the like. Jones is awaiting FDA approval while working on labeling, bottling, bar code and trademarking his sauce. “I’m getting things squared away, solidly in place.  Right now we’re playing a waiting game, waiting for lab results.”  To date, Jones has sold the sauce to a growing group of repeat customers through his website and word of mouth. But he has met with an H-E-B buyer who encouraged him to get the details cleared away and then place the ready-to-go product in his hands.

Jones recently began working with a local packaging company that specializes in sample sizes. “That’s something we’ll have in place as condiment packages.  The main thing is to get someone to taste it. I know for a fact that it speaks for itself.”

Nutty 

For eight years, Yvonne Gentry and her family have grown and sold pecans under the name Valley Pecan. Pecans in the Valley require a bit more water than elsewhere, she said.  Their pecan groves in Cameron and Hidalgo counties provide 12 different varieties (usually named for tribes) that mature at different times over three months.  The most popular varieties are Sioux and Desirable.

When not in their Elsa store, Valley Pecan sets up shop at farmers market, bringing their pecan-cracking machine with them.  “When the nuts are gone, they’re gone until next season,” Gentry said. Samplers and buyers at a farmers market agreed the flavor of fresh pecans is outstanding.

The natural companion of nuts is fruits.  Valley Pecan prepares dried blueberries, cranberries, mangos, figs and papayas.  “We dry all our fruits with no sugar added. That way you have a fresh product.”

Crunchy

Joel Brotzman-Gonzales has loved baking since he was 8 years old.  In November he took his lifelong hobby commercial and began selling sweets, eats and homemade treats under the name Chez Joel at the Harlingen farmers market. “The whole reason I started is that Texas passed a law that you can sell at farmers market as a home baker,” he said.

Brotzman-Gonzales, who runs the Harlingen UPS Store, sold out of his oatmeal-raisin, peanut butter-cocoa and organic seed (flax, sesame, poppy, hemp) cookies within an hour.  “Everyone raved over the samples.  If I would have had more stock, I would have sold it out easily,” he said. “One lady has ordered two dozen for the next time.” He also make chocolate truffles and sea salt-chile truffles.

While the entrepreneur plans to up Chez Joel’s production to keep up with demand, he’s not prepared to go full-time as a baker. “It’s fun, but I’m not looking to do it full time. It’s something that I now have the chance to do it on a small scale while running the UPS Store.”

South Texas wild brush honey marketed by Texas Sweeties carries the possibility of decreasing allergy symptoms since the bees nectar on regional wildflowers. Other honey varieties are mesquite, orange blossom and habanero.  Serendipity of the Valley is one of the home kitchens producing jams and jellies with a border bite.

‘Tis the season to try new local tastes. Artisan foods make wonderful gifts, too.

For more information, see BBQJANK.com, southtexasgoatcheese.com, valleypecan.com or contact chezjoel@yahoo.com. 

December 2014 covery story by Eileen Mattei.