In her new cookery book , Yogurt & Whey , Homa Dashtaki — founder of The White Moustache yogurt caller — part nostalgic category formula from her Iranian heritage .
Carson Downing . intellectual nourishment Styling : Kelsey Moylan
Each meth jar fromThe White Moustachecontains a few precious ounces of traditionally fermented yoghourt . Some feature sour cherry , dates , or orange blossom honey at the bottom , but the velvety yogurt — which adopt Homa Dashtaki and her squad three days to make — is the hotshot . Compared to large brands , hers is a charmingly artisan cognitive operation . She make 15 batch of of course - fermented yogurt weekly and has a lean of computer storage waiting to carry it .
Credit:Carson Downing. Food Styling: Kelsey Moylan
Besides yogurt , The White Moustache now also offers labneh ( a chummy , spreadable eccentric of yoghourt high mallow ) and probiotic quinine water and pops made with whey , the tangy , probiotic fluid atomic number 79 produced in the yogurt - making physical process when tonic yogurt is strained .
Michael Cervieri
Dashtaki started the company in Brooklyn in 2011 with her father , Goshtasb , naming it after his typical facial hair’s-breadth , but their connection to yoghurt - making goes back much further . InYogurt & Whey , she shares her family unit ’s yogurt formula and more than 100 idea for how to use the titular ingredients . Among the most personal are those beauty she ate with her family growing up in Iran where yogurt come out in a savory linguistic context as a cool sauce .
Credit:Michael Cervieri
I babble out with Homa about what it ’s like to share her account through her young book , how her mission mold her decisions as an entrepreneur , and Homa ’s foreign mission to get every yogurt - lover drinking and cooking with whey .
Q: Why did you want to write the book Yogurt & Whey? Why isn’t this The White Moustache yogurt cookbook?
My story and White Moustache ’s story are different . It ’s really significant that I do n’t mark my make as an individual . The business has its own team , but the book , I want it to be rich than a commercial employment . White Moustache is woven in there quite tightly , but it ’s not prescribe the story . It gets to be my linear perspective and Brooklyn linear perspective . I remember I got to tell a ample story . I ’m lucky that my brand is modest and the goal is to stay small . There ’s so much exemption in that .
Q: How do you balance the desire to succeed and to have a sustainable business with a commitment to making your product a specific way?
Our product is so personal to me , and we ’re so small compared to other yogurt makers , so I experience the insistence of the big [ yogurt ] brands all of the time . But if I get that full-grown I have to make compromises I do n’t want to make . In the panic of Covid I saw all my friends with small businesses similar to mine go down . I reached out all over the place to all of my mentors to try out and see it through .
I am in a position right now where , for the first metre since 2014 , we are planning on growing . We ’re at a higher price point than most and that ’s set aside us to prioritise our recipe developing . In this post - Covid world with skyrocketing price , it think we have to take the next footprint . Whether we fail or succeed , we ’ve hopefully set an lesson and create some headway .
Right now we make 15 batches per week , and each mountain is like 80 gallon . We ’re looking to scale to18 , and that ’s a quite a little for us . We have a waitlist of stores . We ’re favorable . We can grow and slowly see where it goes .
Homa Dashtaki
As I ’m make grow my Cartesian product I ’m scrub my community for ideas of how to utilise it , to apply the whey in tandem bicycle with the intake of the yoghurt .
Q: What does growth look like for the company now?
In 2013 I take up in Brooklyn and in 2014 I put my first label on a bottle of resilient probiotic whey . I thought it was my billion dollar idea and I did n’t recognise that it was n’t obvious to everyone else . When I realized nobody knew what to do with it , I added yield juice to it .
There are traditional uses for whey , but I have n’t yet gotten it to trickle down from fine dining to my neighborhood restaurants . As I ’m developing my product I ’m scour my community for ideas of how to use it , to use the milk whey in bicycle-built-for-two with the consumption of the yogurt .
Q: Does the whey supply outpace the market for it?
Yes . I still have whey on my hand . It ’s the unfamiliarity , but it ’s so inspiring as an ingredient ! Any restaurant could turn it into a sorbet , a caramel , a cocktail . Any place could make a whey - based broth . Whey tender flour in baking , or meat in cooking . All I have to do is inspire somebody to use it ! I ’m hope the book will be that .
you’re able to just put it down the drain , and every other yogurt party does , but to me it ’s like , if everyone threw away testicle whites because nobody had take the metre to picture out angel nutrient patty and meringue . It ’s so obvious to me .
It ’s nutrient barren and we want to corrode it , but we also just need multitude to realise how cool it is . Once people know how pronto available it is , I think it could get there .
Q: Do you have new products on the horizon?
Nothing , I desire ! No , but I hope I can get the bandwidth to spread out the word on the products we do make and to put our pops on a little go-cart to have a presence in our community .
Q: Can you tell me about how the design/packaging of your products came to be? Why package the product in glass?
Most yogurt has to be in plastic because they ’re arrange in the same cupful they ’re sold in . But it learn us three days to make our yogurt . I love the fruit in every jar , it ’s so Persian , [ so I put it in glass because ] I want to show it off . We made these decisions based on the terminal customer , on what the experience of eating it would be like . It ’s like a gift . We ’ve been vigorously working on a jar recycling program but we have n’t rolled it out yet .
Q: Do you still work with your dad?
My pappa is very proud . He has a great idea of freezing the whey into treats for dogs . He ’s still very mired in the flavors and the creative pieces . We do seasonal flavors , [ in summertime ] there ’s a king mulberry and it ’s keen , a peach where the peaches are just hardly cooked and as right as potential . It ’s a very nice , almost lingering sayonara to summer . It reminds me a spate of how living was in Iran , really tied to the season .
I realized as I was writing it that it was a storytelling utilization , talking about indistinguishability , belonging , and food .
Q: What do you hope people will learn about Iranian culture from the book?
The Word enchant my storage and my family inheritance . I want it to be crowing than the stigma , and by that I mean I wanted it to live its own lifespan and have its own flight . I did n’t desire to ride on the coattail of my product . I realized as I was pen it that it was a storytelling exercise , talk about identity , belonging , and food . It take me nine years to do this work with my intent squad , my editor program , my publisher ; it ’s a miracle , the whole process .
