The first time that someone told me about MUCIO FURTADO, he mentioned it as a mythological, distant personaje, and the impression that he formed on me without ever having seen it, was that of a theoretician who moved between his books and his chair throughout the planet. Everything is, of course, revolving around questions, which have also since become my work environment. Maybe this encourages me to discover your books before I do it myself.
 
I was invited for these days to a suya conference, and between curious and resistant I attended. Curious because it was very clear that with a person like him, many things could be learned, but he had already read a couple of his books, and was resistant because the invitation to the conference was held between bombs and platillos and the person wanted to present him as the knowledge of all ques- ters and it was evident that my natural resistance had all kinds of presumption and this could not save my resistance to scientific presumption. However, at first I was impressed by his act, the way he achieved this ideal hybrid between art and science at the time of talking about his questions, a lot of pretensions, including pretensions of humility that could be the only initial judgment for a character who showed a face of sencility alongside his voice to convey knowledge. This differentiated me from other technicians and experts who frequently visited the plant I was working on, but even though I continued to see it as a theorist and while I was still wondering about the possibility of seeing it faced in the tanks that were with all the routine inconveniences between coliforms and low yields that are the common denominator of any plant in Latin America. I was very mistaken, because the person mentioned above surprised me even more when he offered to make some cheese, which was required by us as producers: his first test in the tubs of our plant was a Parmesan cheese, and it caused a revue even from the selection of the strain (a single strain of pure Lactobacillus helveticus, compared to the mixture we normally used there, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillus helveticus). I cook the grano, small, with a rapid process of cooking the dough, finishing 2 hours faster than what was routinely our factory and which for our limited knowledge became a complete revelation, to which there was an understandable initial resistance. It was also a conviction and a general admiration for impeccable work in a vat with each new type of cheese made. I am very interested in the knowledge that I could enjoy as I wanted during pregnancy, through that man formed in so many and so many plants that he wanted and I then had the fortune of being awarded with his friendship, he came through the mutual enchantment for poetry: nadie mejor that a man with the soul of a poet could make things withso much accuracy, and there precisely confirms the hidden secret behind the practice of making cheeses; The mortal who in his life has not read and tasted Neruda, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Whitman, Rubén Darío or Vallejo will certainly be able to make good quesos, but I am sure that he will not find complete satisfaction in what he does. Rather than being a dogma, it is a suggestion for those who are being formed.
 
Now, after so many years near queseras tinas, I find myself in front of a book called QUESOS TÍPICOS DE LATINOAMÉRICA and I confirm what I have always thought since before I discovered it: that a specific book about questions in this region, could not be written by someone other than MUCIO FURTADO. This agreement is not just a compilation of his work in all these countries, but a right that has been won by hand with the best efforts we have made in front of scientists and scientists in Latin America. Many times I have accompanied him to make quesos in plants of all sizes and hygienic conditions, and other times I have seen him tasting quesos of all calibers; and faced with the obvious question from the manufacturer about his concept, he always responds with the greatest respect “it all depends on what he intends to do”. And so, if the manufacturer wants to cover a market where there are very different versions of what was once a Blue, Camembert, Parmesan or Peccorino cheese, if that was his intention, for that question to be valid; I do not therefore have to suggest how this question should be, keeping respect for the original process. Furthermore, the manufacturer's decision falls.
 
In QUESOS TÍPICOS DE LATINOAMÉRICA, this character of its author is reflected, with a notorious respect for what the regional market wants, but also with a final call following the steps of a traditional process, always reflecting art and creative activity that must be tied to the process of manufacturing a cheese.
 
In this book, of an absolutely technical nature, we can easily find the Macondian magic implicit in the formulations and recipes, since they are called similar quesos in Mexico, from where the most unexpected raw material can be obtained that is more similar to a good one. queso, passing through Venezuela which without a doubt is the country of the region where more queso per capita is consumed and where more queseras are found in the most unfamiliar places, yet there is Brazil where the quesos are like their people, they come from all over A type of mixture of origin with a tropical charm that is all the best, until we get to Chile and Argentina where we find our own varieties of cheeses of excellent quality, always preserving this traditional European heritage of good taste.
 
Thus are our villages, full of native joy and European heritage, from which a unique culture emerged, a magical one that cannot be compared with anything on the planet; The same happens with our foods, we always want to taste them like they are from allá, but we always end up tasting them like what they are: absolutely new and inimitable. I am sure that many or some of us have manufactured or manufactured here European-type quesos, and will be very similar to those that have traditionally been found there. I am also sure that in Europe, it will be difficult to make a typical cheese like the ones we make here. I tend to start by importing our coliforms (among many others) and as long as they adapt to these conditions.
 
I give my friends a very mature book, with a citrus aroma and firm texture, easy to taste whether sea-baked, grated, grated or simply cut the Italian way. Finally, the flavor will be the same that I now enjoy after reading, because it has been created by the hands of a poet and alchemist of milk, who is the divine gift of doing things and that now teaches us all how to do better, that which someone learned from each of us.
 
EDGAR YESID ACHURY
Miami, USA, February 2017