{ Janet Fletcher / Food Writer }
(left to right) Oveja Negra Manchego ($30/lb); Pecorino di Filiano ($20/lb); Bellwether Farms Pepato ($40/lb)
“For years, we’ve held our price down,” the cheesemaker told me. But he couldn’t hold the line any longer. The economics of aged sheep’s milk cheese was forcing him to bump up prices, and not by a little. What I didn’t understand, and what the cheesemaker convincingly explained, was why comparable wheels from Europe often cost much less.
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I’m always intrigued to learn how a cheese goes from idea to reality. This luscious newbie from West Marin can trace its roots back more than a century, to the day when 17-year-old Fredilino Lafranchi left his home in the Swiss canton of Ticino to try his luck in the U.S. He had $35 in his pocket
Read moreSeriously, what is “seriously” sharp? You’ve seen mild, medium and sharp Cheddars at the supermarket. Maybe you’re the extra-sharp type. For some time now, I’ve been pondering what sharpness means and where it comes from. People ask me all the time what make Cheddar sharp, and I don’t have an answer.
Read moreApart from the time she spends in airports, Sue Sturman has my dream job. She oversees the English-language courses for Academie Opus Caseus, a French program that trains people for careers in cheese. One of the school’s offerings is a four-day “insider’s tour” of Paris cheese shops. The experience is for professionals only, but I figured Sue would give us a peak. If you’re headed to Paris (and isn’t everyone, eventually?), here’s what to know before you go:
Read moreAs many cheese professionals know, Oxford University Press is in the process of compiling the first Oxford Companion to Cheese. If it’s even half as good as OUP’s corresponding works for beer (edited by Garrett Oliver) and wine (edited by Jancis Robinson), this encyclopedia will be a must-have reference.
Read moreWhat a crowd pleaser. Created little more than a decade ago, Cabricharme already feels like a cheese-counter mainstay. Who can resist this Belgian goat’s-milk charmer? The rind is gorgeous, the interior luscious and supple and the aroma off the charts.
Read moreYou’re right. This is the same cheese pictured in last week’s Planet Cheese. But that was a teaser. I identified it then but didn’t describe it, and this is a cheese you want to know. Goat’s milk blues aren’t that common, and great ones like Persillé de Rambouillet are rarer still. Where has this cheese been all my life?
Read moreRemember the missing Morbier? Over the past two years, the FDA detained several imported cheeses because they contained vegetable ash, an ingredient the agency considered a non-permitted colorant. Never mind that European cheesemakers have been using ash for centuries—largely to make the surface of acidic cheeses more hospitable to good molds. Numerous scientific reviews have found nothing scary about ash.
Read moreNo, it’s not art. It’s a cheese board, and it’s meant to be consumed down to the last pistachio. Cheese artiste Lilith Spencer creates these edible dreamscapes for Cheesemongers of Santa Fe, the year-old store where she works. Wowza. Looks like we’re all going to have to up our game.
Read moreIf your notion of British cheese begins with Cheddar and ends with Stilton, you have some catching up to do. The diversity and quality of wheels coming into the U.S. from the British Isles has been nothing short of remarkable in recent years, reflecting a renaissance of artisan cheese making there. But American consumers don’t seem up to speed on this—perhaps because they have low esteem for British food in general. Wake up, people.
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