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Because the cheese era is changing (see last entry), we are at a crossroads. The 70s and 80s cheese folks – as a whole – have a great deal of credibility and honesty associated with their work and that has reflected well on all of us working in the business today. What will happen next is unclear.

There are a lot of issues with credibility on the table right now. Companies that never thought they’d be secure have expanded beyond their wildest dreams. Despite the fact that the word “artisan” has no real definition, as a cheesemonger I can assure people reading that consumers have a lot of trust in the concept of “artisan cheese”. The loose definitions (like “artisan”) used by many small producers, however, leave these vulnerable to cynical marketing and manipulation by other, larger forces.

“Artisan cheese” is often being sold right now as if it’s an offering from the one person to another. Farmers markets — even when the person selling the cheese may never have even touched a ruminant– promote this idea whether they intend to or not. But as companies get bigger, get sold to outside interests, or start buying supplies from outside the region, the credibility earned with such hard work over the years is endangered.

Let me say briefly (since this issue has already popped up in discussions about this “2010 Wrap Up” series) that I have no issue with any company using frozen curd (for goats) or frozen milk (for sheep). I do have an issue with the marketing of a product as local when the ingredients are not (at least almost entirely) local. I think this is a huge issue for the future if customers start feeling lied to by cheese companies, especially when they buy them at a farmers market under the illusion that they are supporting a local business.

Certainly this issue only affects a subset of cheese eaters, obviously almost no customer in California cares if a Vermont cheese is using Midwest curd (as a “buy local” issue), but they do care if a company is advertising their “terroir” but are not entirely of that region.

(I use this picture to illustrate my point. I drove hundreds of miles out of my way to see the “World’s Largest Cheese”. When I found out it was a replica of the box the World’s Largest Cheese was shipped in, I distrusted Wisconsin cheesemakers for years)

This is kind of my hobby horse I guess… I like definitions, even if I do not necessarily feel qualified to make them. Farmers often get itchy when people start talking about certification programs, but very soon, as consumers get more educated, more questions will be asked. And not just about regionality, I just chose that because it’s an issue bubbling up all over the cheese world right now.

If a cheese is made with curd or milk from hundreds of miles away, is it local to anywhere? What percentage of non-local curd or milk makes it alocal?*

Can someone call a cheese’s ruminant “grass-fed” if they just let her graze occasionally? Or does it have to be part of an agricultural system that eschews grain-based feed?

Can dairies continue to be called “farmstead” if they have too many cows to name or if cheesemaking is not their primary form of business?

If Jack in the Box describes their fast food bread as “artisan” can the word really continue to have any meaning at all?

What is “small production”?… Could this cheese be considered “Domestic Fair Trade”?… Do the marketing images of a cheese company correspond to the look of the actual farm and the people doing most of the actual labor?…

So many questions…

I have my own answers to a lot of these, obviously. And cheese people are already working on defining some of these as well, but I think — moving forward — these are some things that need to be thought about in the coming years. Of course, these questions have their roots in the problem of success. The craft cheese business is more popular than ever as is the sophistication level of its customers. Not dealing honestly with many of these questions poses a real danger to the next era of the new American cheese.

(When I went to see “The World’s Largest Holstein Cow”**, on the other hand, the truth in advertising made me a happy boy.)

*”alocal”. I just made that word up, but I like it. Without locality. As in, “You can’t talk about that cheese’s terroir because it’s alocal”
**Such specificity! Not the “Largest Jersey Cow”! Not the “Largest Guernsey Cow”! Nope, the “Largest Holstein”.

2010 saw the death of two important cheese people who I knew: Jim Boyce, who reenergized Marin French Cheese, the oldest continually operating cheese plant in the country and Kathy Obringer who was making great cheese at Ancient Heritage Dairy in Oregon. Though both these folks died before their time, it’s a sad fact that many of the folks who started the reinvigoration of small cheese production in this country are aging.

Cheesemaking is a vocation for the patient. Many of the folks who began reigniting this tradition of started their work in the ‘70s or early ‘80s. That means they’ve been at it for 30 years or so. A number of them, especially the goat folks, were back-to-landers who do not have children who wish to carry on their cheese legacy. What’s going to happen?

What will happen in the future is an open question. Some, like Sally Jackson will sell their animals and equipment and retire. Some, like the Gingriches of Uplands Cheese passed on the cheesemaking mantle to a younger generation. Others, like Mary Keehn of Cypress Grove will keep their legacy – and rural jobs – alive by selling their companies. That these companies may get sold to companies not rooted in the local area may change the nature of the new American cheese business.

When one looks at the pictures of the first years of the American Cheese Society conferences it’s clear that those folks were in it for the passion, obsession, love of the animals or completely by accident. There were no flighty sales reps in those pictures, no one in suits (except for possibly a European guest or dairy science professor here and there). The ACS was an organization of mutual aid in large part. The only people crazy enough to try to make small production cheese had to stick together.

Those days are long gone, as days tend to be, but a lot of the original folk are still around right now. You can still meet them at conferences and bask in the oral tradition of craft cheesemaking history around the bar! However, the way the math works out, we are looking at the last remaining years of this generation actively working in the business. I have my worries about the future,* but either way this era of the cheese world is ending and a new one beginning.

I just want to take this opportunity to say thanks to all the original cheese visionaries in this country. You’ve changed our agricultural world.

*I am a worrier by nature. That’s why my girlfriend insisted we get a terrier because we’d be so well suited for each other.

**ha. My auto correct changed a typo in the title from “another beginning” to “nothing beginning” . I wasn’t trying to be so negative! I corrected it above.

There are five more days in 2010 and I will be giving you five end-of-the-year posts. Starting today I will be posting the five trends I’m seeing in the cheese world right now. Just my opinion and all that, but I feel pretty strongly that these are the big issues right now.

The continued emergence of US-made cheese When I started as a cheese buyer more than 16 years ago, the idea that US-made cheese would ever challenge the European classics was laughable. Sure, some fanatics would always buy local, but it would be a sacrifice of taste for politics.

That’s simply not true anymore.

For example – and I say this knowing that it is practically cheese-sacrilege — the best regularly-available-in-the-Bay-Area ripened goat milk cheese is Bonne Bouche from Vermont. Most long-time cheese shoppers still resist this idea – looking for the (pasteurized French export versions of) Valencay, Selles sur Cher, Chevre D’or, Lingot – but side by side, Bonne Bouche does not only equal those export versions, it surpasses them for complex, tangy goat taste. I know most of you reading won’t believe me. Try it for yourself and get back to me

But that’s not the only place where US cheeses are encroaching on the considered-unassailable Euro- cheeses. Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Ascutney Mountain and Spring Brook Tarentaise are up there with Comte and Gruyere, Mountina and Edelweiss up there with Emmenthal, Marieke Gouda with the best Dutch aged Goudas, Winnimere with Forsterkase, and –though this is premature to say – Rush Creek Reserve may even someday challenge the Vacherin Mont D’or.

Even though many of these cheeses were being made five or ten years ago, they are only now getting to the point – in terms of consistency and depth of flavor –where this is true. Cheesemaking is not for the short-term planner.

Additionally, a number of American originals are becoming staples in their own right. Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk, the seasonal Rogue River Blue, the Dunbarton Blue (like a Montgomery Cheddar with a cracked moldy rind!) and the Vella Golden Bear Dry Jack are unmatched. Sure, as yet there is no American challenge to Parmigiano Reggiano, Brie de Meaux, or the best Gorgonzola Dolcelatte, but at this point challenging those cheeses just seems doubtful instead of impossible.

(I am re-emerging from my holiday cheese hole. Hi Everyone!)