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Visits with Hugh & Kay at
Finca las Brisas
My old friends of more than 40 years, Hugh and Kay Force, retired some time back to the highlands above Matagalpa, Nicaragua where they bought a small rundown coffee farm. Over the last several years they have greatly improved the farm, where they now also harvest bananas, grapefruit, oranges, lemons, limes and tangerines from the trees that provide shade for the coffee.
Tangerine
Matagalpa, Nicaragua
Carl Judson ©2001
Oil on acrylic sized museum board 4” x 6”
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In addition, they also have a small herd of Jersey milk cows. From the milk Kay, with the help of Marta (shown above) and Leticia, make about 20 pounds of fresh cheese, called cuajada¹, every morning. The cheese and whey and some milk are sold to the surrounding community.
Coffee - Finca Las Brisas
Matagalpa, Nicaragua
Carl Judson ©2010
Oil on acrylic sized museum board 4” x 6”
The coffee is picked daily during December and January, the peak of the harvest. The ripe coffee berries (roughly the size and flavor of cherries) are run through a bicycle powered machine to remove the fruit. The coffee beans are left to soak and ferment over night.
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The next day the beans are washed and spread out on screens so that any rejects can be spotted and discarded. The beans are then bagged and hauled over a jeep road to Matagalpa where they are consigned to a benificio that will take on the final drying and grading of the beans and the “cupping” of the coffee. Cupping is a process like wine tasting by which the coffee is classified as to quality and the characteristics of its flavor according to charts with dozens of options. The benifico may also serve as the warehouse and broker for the coffee.
Me & My Pocket Box
The cows contribute manure and bedding to the compost pile which fertilizes the coffee, and in return they get to eat the discarded coffee fruit.
Most of us would consider Hugh and Kay’s living conditions to be Spartan, but by rural Nicaraguan standards they are very comfortable. From my perspective, they are running a well disguised community development project. |
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In Nicaragua jobs are hard to come by, let alone from considerate employers like Hugh and Kay. They supply full time employment to a half-dozen residents of the surrounding community and seasonal employment to about 15 coffee pickers. The cheese and milk they sell contribute a source of high quality food in an area where borderline nutrition is the norm. In addition, Hugh and Kay set an admirable example of careful husbandry in a fragile landscape. They also help neighboring subsistence farmers by supplying transport, storage and financing for the bean harvest.
Here is a local desert recipe that Sarah and I have adapted from Kay’s notes:
Bananas en Gloria (serves six)
3 large bananas, peeled and halved
3 T. butter
½ cup cuajada (actually a range of cheeses can work with this basic recipe – like cheddar and blue)
½ cup cream
Cinnamon, sugar and salt to taste
Lightly sauté banana halves in butter and cinnamon, set aside. Add cream and cheese to the sauté pan to make a sauce, return bananas to pan and baste with the sauce until the bananas are soft and the sauce is thick.
Bananas en Gloria prepared with habanero cheddar and garnished with mango salsa.
1. A salted, compressed cottage-type cheese related to cheeses of Mediteranean origin, including feta and ricotta. Cuajada is a Spanish version that can be found throughout Latin America under various names like queso blanco, queso fresco, and quesillo.
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