Caciocavallo Podolico in Basilicata. Kimberly Behr

About the Cheese Anthology

 

By Edward Behr

This growing anthology is meant to be a simple, practical guide for people who love cheese. The goal, as always in AoE, is to provide information on a level that’s satisfying to professionals yet accessible to anyone — I admit I struggle to keep things short. The focus is on taste, on what makes each cheese what it is and different from all others, something that often seems missing from other descriptions.

I look for the platonic ideal. With each important traditional cheese, certain influences are typical and they define it: the regional environment, the kind of dairy animal, the feed, the long-established choice of techniques, the size and shape. Often something very particular enters in. Each traditional cheese is a response to nature; it strongly reflects practicality and economics going back to the days of exclusively hand work, which sometimes persists; and it reflects a deep sense of pleasure.

It’s true that between certain cheeses the differences are small. And within each kind, the cheeses have always differed at least a little, sometimes a lot, from one maker to another, from one week to another, although less so today than in the past. Appellation rules sometimes exclude historical variations, and what’s typical may have changed.

Yet to be authentically itself and taste as good as it can, a cheese should be a certain thing. Not that new things can’t be invented; not that a cheese in the style of Stilton can’t be implanted in Vermont; not that Penicillium roqueforti, famous for turning the interior of a ewe’s-milk cheese blue, can’t be successfully applied to the exterior of a goat’s-milk log; not that some of the best makers in Switzerland aren’t working outside the system of official names. But a great Époisses, for example, is a specific and wonderful creation, and playing with the method for making it is unlikely to lead to anything as satisfying and good.

In terms of understanding, I hope these articles represent some of my best work. The original idea was that they shouldn’t tell stories and should hardly mention people. But as I’ve been drawn in more and more, I’m writing at greater length, and I’ve changed my mind. Sometimes now there are both people and a bit of story. Because careful research and writing require support, the anthology is accessible only to subscribers. (This introduction, the how-to, the glossary, and the Époisses article are open to all.)

 

Suggested reading:

Androuët, Pierre. Guide du fromage. English edition, revised. Henley-on-Thames, UK, Aidan Ellis, 1983. New and revised edition. Originally published as Guide du fromage. Paris, Stock, 1971.

Behr, Edward. “Butter,” “Camembert,” and six more dairy entries. 50 Foods: A Guide to Deliciousness. New York, The Penguin Press, 2013.

Donnelly, Catherine. Ending the War on Artisan Cheese: The Inside Story of Government Overreach and the Struggle to Save Traditional Raw Milk Cheesemakers. White River Junction, Vermont, Chelsea Green, 2019.

Donnelly, Catherine, ed. The Oxford Companion to Cheese. New York, Oxford University Press, 2016.

Kindstedt, Paul. Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and Its Place in Western Civilization. White River Junction, Vermont, Chelsea Green, 2012.

McCalman, Max, and David Gibbons. Cheese: A Connoisseur’s Guide to the World’s Best. New York, Clarkson Potter, 2005.

Michelson, Patricia. Cheese: The World’s Best Artisan Cheeses. London, Jacqui Small, 2010.

Rance, Patrick. The French Cheese Book. London, Macmillan, 1989.

Rance, Patrick. The Great British Cheese Book, second edition. London, Macmillan, 1988.

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