Got a new computer so I am organizing files. Look for some awesome pictures in the coming days because I am finding some misplaced and forgotten photos.
Here is Widmer Brick Cheese being bricked into shape. 2009
There is an ongoing and spirited debate about affinage in the cheese community. The New York Times weighed in a couple of years ago and other articles and discussions followed. I even got asked by the local foodies. I said, “Meh”.
However when it comes to the cheeses aged by Rodolphe Le Meunier, I can see the beauty of having a talented cheese ager. The ripened and ashed goat cheeses we buy under his name are the best French ones we have had in years. His Jeune Autize, Puits d’astiers, and Tome des Pyrenees are better than versions I have had by others, including the original producers in one case. And his 30th Month aged Comte that we tried at the Fancy Food Show. OMG. It may be too expensive for us to ever sell, but I will forever cherish that cheese memory.
Here is the man at the Fancy Food Show:
Some of his cheese including the Jeune Autize
While I think that a lot of folks talk about their “affinage” as a pure marketing ploy, Meunier is the real deal. He’s an M.O.F. (Master Artisan), 2007 World Cheesemonger Champion, and from five generations of cheesemakers. While I have mocked or “meh”ed “affinage” in the past, I want to make clear that this is the, the kind of cheesemaking tradition that is worth paying for most of the time.
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I don’t usually post anything on Saturdays, but you all have to go read Jeanne Carpenter’s latest. Right now!
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Tagged cheese underground, grass fed, grass fed dairy, grass-based, jeanne carpenter
Mmmmm, the new Swiss cheeses rock my cheese world.
Tasting with Forever Cheese
Willi Schmid’s Jersey Blue
Pan Forte tower at the Fresca Italia booth
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Tagged cheese, cheese pictures, cheese pron, fancy food show, forever cheese, fresca italia, willi schmid
There was celebrating in the aisles!
Congrats Redwood Hill on 45 years!
Congrats Cypress Grove on 30!
I took a “Master Class” at the cheese school during Fancy Food week. It was taught by the awesome Zoe Brickley of Jasper Hill Farm, the same woman who put together this video:
Anyways the class was “Milk, from Grass to Vat” and it was a great trip through the chemical reactions that make cheese magic happen. While the class acknowledged that milk is just one (important) part of the cheesemaking process, the attention to detail on milk composition and the effects of things like feed, mold, yeast, holding time etc, was impressive.
And the cheese was good.
Before
(From top: Harbison (Jasper Hill milk), Harbison (Andersonville Farm milk), Winnimere (oops, not shown), Landaff, Txiki, Tomme de la Chataignerie, Quadrello di Bufala (aka “Buffalo Taleggio”) Cabot Clothbound (Kempton Farm), Cabot Clothbound (pooled milk from Cabot Co-op)
After:
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Tagged cheddar cutting video, cheese, jasper hill, milk, san francisco cheese school, zoe brickley
What can I say that would be new and exciting about the Fancy Food Show? I have probably written pretty much the same entry about it every year for a decade. The best bits (that I am willing to publish) are already in my book. One can only write about desperation capitalism, food safety no-nos, the hip-marketing of peasants, and vanity projects of the rich and famous so many times, eh?
“We are Specialty Food” indeed
I know, I know. There is more to it than that. There is cheese, which skirts these issues more delicately than many other food products. And it is, one assumes, why you are reading this post anyway.
I like the show because it brings in cheese friends from out of town. I like it because it’s one of two big chances a year for me to talk to cheesemakers from around the country and the world. I like it because the Cheese School Master Classes are pretty awesome. I like it because every couple of years I taste something amazing that rocks my cheese world.*
I don’t like it because… trade show. If you’ve been to one, you know what I mean. I do feel for all the folks who had to set up the show on Saturday and work through their weekends. I’m still exhausted from the food holidays myself. Glad I don’t need to do any behind the scenes work.
But that’s where I was for the greater part of last week… in the Moscone Center with the Fancy Food, the unfancy food, and all the food people. Tasted some great cheese and saw some awesome folks. Now that I can catch a breath, I’ll be writing it up this week.
*BTW, great news about the 2014 ACS conference location. The conference chair told me to spread the word but the ACS people said, “Wait until the contracts are signed” so I will keep it to myself for now. (It’s not SF)
Lots of Fancy Food Show stuff this week and many out of town visitors. I’ll have a lot to say next week, but no time to post in this one.
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This week my purely arbitrary cheese obsession of the week is the Tome des Pyrenees affinaged by Rodolphe Meunier.
It’s bark-wrapped raw cow’s milk from Basque country. Unlike most bark-wrapped cheese it is not oozy, but semi-soft, at least the versions in the U.S. Now that Americans (myself included) have proven to themselves that they can enjoy strong cheeses, I hope that cheese like this can come into popularity. Tomme des Pyrenees is not strong at all, it’s the — sometimes confounding to shoppers — epitome of a cheese that is mild, but complex.
It’s earthy, woodsy, rich, fruity and just an all around pleasure to eat. You have to take a second to appreciate it because the flavor does not all show itself at once. If you bring it to room temp and let the cheese linger on your tongue, you will be rewarded with a cheese you will keep tasting because 1. You will be trying to isolate all the different flavor aspects and 2., it is just an awesome experience.
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Gordon ("Zola") Edgar 