Seeing how cheese is made is an interesting cultural experience that you should try to have before leaving the Alps. I was here for years before I first stumbled across a cheese-making hut in the Syler Valley, over the ridge behind Sulwald. I found it only accidentally because no one ever told me where these places were, but you don't have to wait a couple of years because I'm going to tell you where to look.

Everywhere. Don't be shy. If you're out in the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden there's a herd of cows, chances are there's a hut nearby with an open half-door where you can peek in without appearing overly aggressive. A cheese-making hut is usually easily identified by the presence of an open fireplace and a huge copper kettle. If there's somebody in the hut, so what? Just be polite. Hello is a universally understood word, and most cheese-makers, even in the remotest of huts, recognize the English word cheese. When I worked at Obersteinberg, the cheese-maker, Hänsel, asked me more than once why the English-speaking people never came into the hut. Our particular brand of shyness, especially when combined with a finely-tuned sense of what is another person's private zone, is something that's not understood by the Swiss. So, get over it!

Obviously, cheese is made at Obersteinberg. In the nature preserve of Untersteinberg, Scheuerboden, Läger, Tal and Oberhornalp are all equipped to make cheese, but only one of them will be operating at any given time. Your mission is to figure out which one. On the other side of the preserve, Breitlauenen (a.k.a. the Goat Alp) is constantly in service making goat cheese. There are countless cheese-making huts around, even when you leave the confines of the Back Lauterbrunnen Valley, but I will name for you only the places that I'm one hundred percent sure about. They are Oberberg, in the Sefinen Valley, Obere Brechalp, in the Trümmel Valley and Pletschenalp, above Grütschalp. All of these Alps produce Bergkäse or "Mountain cheese," but the procedures may vary slightly, mostly due to the number of cows on each Alp. The following steps show how cheese is made at Obersteinberg:

1. The milk kindly donated by the 12 resident milk cows is poured into an enormous copper kettle. (After the milk needed for the hotel is taken out, this usually totals 130-150 liters per day.)

2. The kettle is heated over an open fire until the milk reaches a temperature of 32° Celcius.

3. A thickening agent called "rennet" and an anti-bacterial culture are added to the milk.

4. It is covered and left to sit (unheated) for about 35 minutes, or until it's thick enough for a large wooden spoon to stand straight up in it.

5. The now custardlike substance in the kettle is turned over very gently with the wooden spoon and then mixed with a tool called a "harp" until the individual globules of "pre-cheese" are about the size of cotton balls.

6. The cottonballs are stirred, slowly and evenly with a battery operated stirring propeller for between 30-40 minutes. By this time the globules should be much smaller, about the size of cottage cheese granules, which is pretty much what they are. They are suspended in a beige liquid which is known in Switzerland as Käsemilch--"cheesemilk".

7. The kettle is returned to the fire for about another fifteen minutes, and, while still being stirred, the mixture is allowed to reach a temperature of 43-48° Celcius - higher in the beginning of the season and lower at the end. (It has to do with the consistency of the grass that the cute little mooers are digesting.)

8. The kettle is once again removed from the fire, where stirring continues for about another half hour.

9. Using a cheesecloth with a flexible metal rod wrapped into one edge, the cheesemaker scoops out the "curds" in two seperate batches. (The cheesemilk that remains is in fact known as "whey" to Miss Muffet and the rest of us.)

10. The batches of cheese, still in the cheesecloths , are each pressed into a flat wooden cylinder called a Järb.

11. The Järbs of cheese are stacked between thick cutting boards, and a wooden beam is wedged between them and a rock weight suspended from the ceiling.

12. Every few hours the cheeses are turned and the cloths changed. The boards, weight and beam are all replaced, the cheesemaker making sure each time that the cheeses are being pressed evenly.

13. The next morning, the cheeses are turned a final time and pressed without cloths.

14. Shortly before the new cheese is ready to be scooped from the kettle, the pressed cheeses are removed from the Järbs and placed in a salt bath, where they remain for 2 days.

15. The cheeses are stored in order on the shelves of a special mouseproof storage room.

16. Every two or three days, they are washed with saltwater, to prevent excessive moulding, and turned.

17. The cheeses should age for at least one year, after which they are sold as Bergkäse or "Mountain Cheese."

18. If they hang around for two years or longer, they become harder. The older cheese is known as Hobelkäse, after the device used to cut it into thin, curled slices.