First off I was late, dawdling this rainy morning. I missed the briefing and my lab coat was too small even for a ten year old child. On a bright note though, the hairnet was just perfect and I was wearing the correct all-terrain underwear and cashmere socks. I’m at the 2008 judging for the Melbourne Specialist Cheese Show (open Sunday 17th August 2008 at Crown) run by the Australian Specialist Cheesemakers Association.
I admired chief judge Ian’s red hairnet as he explained the 300 cheeses that lay ahead. Luckily it was split into ten categories. A couple of judges would shortlist each category so we only had to taste 50 or so of the stinkers (or in some cases not so stinky) blind.
Each cheese was scored 25 for flavour, 15 for texture and 10 for the look (and most were pretty good looking).
My category was one of the shorter straws, the curd cheeses. This is one area where Australia hasn’t quite mastered yet. The mozzarella-type cheeses were for the most part good looking, creamy testicular balls, some tasting quite good, but all rubbery. Unfortunately my benchmark is the Italian stuff (you can get it from Kirkfood when it’s in stock), which has the outside texture of plump breast but melts apart.
Enviously, I looked on as Matt Preston cut a manly-sized wedge of a blue cheese casting his expert eye over its veining. That was before I accidentally looked into the cheese spittoon. And it’s probably best to move on…
The verdict
- Australian cheese tends towards creamy and bland.
- Brie-type cheeses seem to be a bit to stiff or a little too runny.
- Not daring enough with strong flavours
- Work needed on the veining of some blue cheeses
- There were some cheeses that I’d have liked to see in the show that weren’t (unless they’d already been knocked-out.
- Australia is best at making goats cheese with some great flavours and textures. Why wasn’t there more goats cheese entered?
- Overall though, the cheeses were a lot better than expected. We’ve come a long way in cheese in the past few years but really need to make unpasteurised products if we are to progress.
The good news (thanks for sending it through Thermomixer) is that the plonkers at Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ ) have announced the terms of its review of dairy processing standards that currently ban, with a few exceptions, anything made with raw milk.
As Will Studd says, there massive local resistance to change. Some of it is from within the cheese industry itself. Gawd knows why.
“It has taken twelve years of lobbying to get to this point , and its very
unlikely another review will be undertaken for another decade . If you care
about good cheese please make a submission ……Without a choice on the production and sale of raw milk cheese in Australia
we will never develop a genuine cheese culture , or experience the authentic
regional flavours of cheese enjoyed by our counterparts overseas.”
So remember if you care about cheese go here now to the Food Standards website and and search P1007. Submissions close 6pm, September 17 2008.
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{ 47 comments… read them below or add one }
Amusing commentary, Ed. I’m heading there tomorrow… pity there aren’t so many goats in the show, by the sounds of it. Greatly agree on your ‘bland and creamy’ observation, and the comment about mozzarella. If look forward to the day when Aussie mozz is less like the inside of a golfball!
Hi Ed. Good to read about the cheese show. My understanding is that you need to be a memebr of the ASCA to enter this show and with so many of the really good cheese makers in Australia not being members of the ASCA, it might explain why some of your favourites were absent.
Yep, more goat would be fab…Australian cheeses are ‘creamy & bland’ because that’s what ’strayens like?!
Duncan, I’m glad it’s not just me. Hope you enjoyed yourself. I’ve no idea which won because we were tasting blind.
Nick, that explains it then. The other thing I noticed is that even the good ones we don’t really see in shops much. It seems there is a bit of a distribution problem i suppose which is natural for small producers.
ut si, a nice creamy cheese and a sauv blanc -I guess that’s the mass taste.
ooops, I kinda like a sav blanc…sometimes…in summer…it’s the gooseberries…oh the shame.
Speaking of cheese, Ashgrove here in Tas make a drop dead gorgeous farmhouse butter now…VERY rich yellow with strong aroma & lovely tang…great for shortcrust pastry.
Hi Bruny Island, as a founding member of the ASCA, why aren’t more cheesemakers members? Guess it’s political, and possibly related to the pasteurised cheese/importation debates?
I decided to go yesterday for a look and there weren’t that many exhibitors. Many of the good cheeses had Richard Thomas’ input in some form, but those serving the cheeses didn’t know who he is!!
The Yarra Valley Marinated Feta (which I think was the “champion”) is 110% from RT.
Nick, are you in favour of unpasteurised milk for cheeses ?
BTW -Bruny Island Cheese Co. above is missing an “a” from island so the link does not work.
Fixed it for him Thermomixer.
What I really want to know is for an association that started off with such high ideals where they lost the will. From To Die For by Stephen Downes: “The Australian Specialist Cheesemakers Association, which was set up in 1996 to promote raw-cheesemaking, has no interest these days in using unpasteurized milk. At base, its members are too lazy and cheap to implement safety measures to minimize bacterial contamination of raw milk. The politics of it all is Byzantine, the vested interests huge.”
“Cheese spittoon’ – eeew! That is *so* going to be the name of my next band.
I guess I can only give you my story when it comes to the ASCA. In essence, I stopped being a memebr when the association stopped representing my views. Also, being in southern tasmania, it is really difficult to get the full value out of the expensive membership fee as I can not attend any of the meetings and functions.
The raw milk thing is a huge reason that I am not a member. It really should be called the Australian Specialist Cheesemakers (that do not want to make raw milk cheese) Association, as there are a number of artisan producers who are not memebers because of the ASCA’s position on this. It is a shame, because we are a small industry and it would be great to have the one industry association that represents all the specialist cheesemakers in Australia – and all their views. But the ASCA has modelled itself on the views of it’s board members rather than the industry as a whole.
So Thermo, yes, I am obviously passionate about the need to make raw milk cheese in Australia. It is the only way for artisan cheesemakers to prosper and the only way that we will get the cheeses which were so dissapointingly absent from the ASCA show.
Skipped on down to Kirkfood for my breast, err, cheese ball and it was everything you promised. I’ve had quite a few of the local buffalo mozzarella balls but felt quite shamed that I didn’t get what people were on about; their Pomella brand was in a whole other league, tight skin covering the creamy, quivering mass of sweet curd…I so get it now. Btw, I didn’t say who I was and they were happy to serve me straight from the street — Bok’s bacon, sensational; their traditional polenta is the best I’ve ever had, wonderful pure corn flavour without any hint of sourness that bedevils the quick cook types, but also very hard core…there isn’t any instruction on how to cook it anywhere on the pack.
I agree with you about the state of Aussie cheeses, there a very few that have much character at all. Just as our wine industry has been charged with making high alcohol fruit bombs, our cheese nobs seem to be intent on high cholesterol cream bombs without much flavour. Good point about the veining in blue cheeses; I once bought a big name brand blue cheese that didn’t have any veining at all! Weird, it tasted blue and on enquiry the company said that the holes sometimes close up after piercing if the chees is too soft and the blue veins can’t develop. But really, how can that put such a product on the shelves if it hasn’t been tested? Does that say something about the state of the industry?
Thanks Bruny
Having shared a lait cru fermière Camembert at Chateau de Brou in 1999 I thought that it might be the case that you would support raw milk cheeses.
It really is a shame that cheesemakers can’t be a cohesive group, but the big worry from many cheesemakers is that once the ban is lifted there will be more imported cheeses to compete against, and they will have a smaller share of the market.
I am old enough to remember Will Studd promoting Australian cheeses and assisting the Camerons at Merdith amongst others to develop their cheese, before the ban was introduced. He was very actively encouraging those who now argue against his request for re-introducing – not introducing – raw milk cheese to Australia.
Bruny Island has shown what can be done if you get a good education overseas and apply that knowledge.
Australia has more varieties of blue cheese than probably any other country and I wonder whether to some extent it is in the hope that adding blue cultures will give flavours that are lacking from attempts at white mould/washed rind cheeses. Also they have longer storage capabilities.
Will Studd & David brown “debated” the issue on ABC National on Friday – the podcast is available here and their segment is about 27 minutes into the program.
We no longer have brucellosis and TB to worry about in the milk. Pasteurising doesn’t remove every bacteria and can fail if temperatures/timing aren’t adhered to, and the cheese can become contaminated later in production from poor hygeine.
We should have a choice, we finally got Italian prosciutto and Spanish jamon. Bring back raw milk cheese.
Nick, that’s a shame they’ve gone that way. They should be promoting the greater interests of cheese rather than this single blinkered view. It’s not to say that all raw milk cheese is good or all pasteurized cheese is bad but a bit of diversity would be good. And I guess that also goes for the source of the milk in terms of breeds of cows, sheep and goat etc.
Neil, Glad you went and bought it. It is astonishingly good isn’t it and completely different to anything made locally. I must get don there for the bacon and Polenta perhaps.
Sorry, looks like i did’nt close the weblink ! Ahhh html
If you bring the bacon, I’ll cook the polenta. Would you like it with slices of buffalo mozzarella or a runny poached egg atop? Not a fair choice really.
Thermomixer fixed it. The problem is that even if they change the rules on imports there still is a massive out of touch bureaucracy still to fight. I wrote something a while ago for The Australian on it here.
Thermo
yes we have Spanish Jamon and Italian Proscuitto but we dont have Cardoso or any other real ham here? do we? And not likely to in the near future.
George, have you tried the stuff that Robert Marchetti is is having made to his specs in Lismore?Apparently they are opening a modern factory up there with all the computer controlled paraphernalia – shutters opening to let the air circulate and so on. It’s the main reason to visit Guiseppe Arnaldo & Sons to try as near to the proper stuff we have locally.
Ed sorry to hijack the discussion but
Thermo, I no have not tried GAS and will not until I can put a Roullette wheel into the sex kitten salon, or perhaps a crapshoot into the shed next to the two-up?
Level playing fields are just a myth, we are allowed to make a Parmesan style cheese but who will? Probably an Italian company who can see the fututre in the way the French wine companies have.
I am all for legal raw milk cheese and a moratorium on raw milk cheese imports until the local raw milk cheesemakers get established. Say 5 years. I wonder what Will Studd would say to that?
Hi George, might have to discuss it over a snag on Monday. Will I bring some more jamon ? I didn’t find out from you last time about all the crap that “killed” Angel. Thought that it was beaurocracy rather than competition. Remember to blast or enlighten me.
Still believe that we need to be able to have these products availbale for local consumers as well as producers so that they know what a particular products should taste/smell/feel/look like. Sort of benchmarking.
I support the locals, have been a producer and don’t have vast amounts of money to only buy imported stuff, but still see a place for it. I bought loads of Angel’s product & would still, even with the imports available.
Sorry Ed for (ab)using space here, but just quickly. Sorry to have upset you George. I don’t think that it will make much difference to Will S as he would be substituting pasteurised product that he currently imports, such as Isigny Camembert, Graindorge Livarot & Pont L’Eveque, for their lait cru sisters. Calendar/Fromagent sells more local than imported cheese (I believe).
Aside, I had some fanastic capocollo at Cumulus Inc on Friday from Daysleford despite reports.
While surfing I came across this old report in The Age. In particular, I like the quote from Sam Hirst “You can’t have people throwing caution to the winds,” he says, “but if a guy’s been making cheeses or smallgoods for 40 years, and not killed anyone, it’s a pretty good record, isn’t it? Do we want to end up 10 years from now where you are going to get two food groups – these highly processed foods with a dumbed-down taste and just a few traditionally fermented foods made by just a few surviving artisans – like the very last frontiers of flavour?”
BTW, Ed advised we try GAS prosciutto – he might bring some for you on Sunday.
George, please carry on. I worry about moratoriums on imports which seem to me as bade as trade tariffs. We have to also consider th etwo-way trade we want to develop with Europe too.Our cheeses will be okay for a while with a moratorium but without a higher benchmark we’ll end up with the cheese equivalent of gas guzzling Commodore’s and Falcons, wichh all seem a bit out of date compared to the latest German or Italian model. Maybe when the Marchetti sponsored factory gets going we can get a wider distribution. I dream of a shop “Ham & Cheese”, a sleek glass -plated fridge one side full of locally made meats, the other side the same full of brilliant local cheese…dreams…
Oh for a German or Italian model – my commodore is out of date!
Difficult to discuss complex issues like this in short bursts but if you think that protected new raw milk cheese makers would make the cheese equivalent of Commadores or Falcons then I think you have a misguided analogy. But to follow your analogy…..
The gas guzzlers were concieved in Detroit. Ford and GM still dictate what we make here.
Also, free trade tarrifs allow you to buy 45c cans of Italian tomatoes [latest italian model] in the supermarket that are dumped on us. The French also know how to get rid of the surplus. The local dried currant industry has all but been wiped out by cheap Greek currants.
Its a delicate equation.
Free trade is only free to the strongest trading partner.
Why should that shop just be a dream? perhaps because food issues are at the bottom of most political strategies.
Thermo not upset at all.
Yes the Daylesford pork products are improving very quickly and I am using them now that our local ones are gone.
George, I stand my the analogy – an industry protected that doesn’t modernise or have any incentive to innovate. The EU is more about subsidies than anything else and you are right it is dificult to discuss in these tiny bursts. I’d doubt quality cheese would be dumped upon us or be any cheaper than anything made locally. But I’m also up for anything that gives the consumer better value and stimulates consumption. A market where we have healthy competition builds the market and develops the consumers appetite for the product with the ultimate winner being the local producer. Plus the way the world is going with high petrol prices, increased input costs generally for food, expensive carbon credits and so on, the market is naturally biased towards the local. Sorry, I was a Thatcher child.
Hey Steve, I didn’t meanto ignore you. You’ve got something much cooler than all those .Semi-imported flexible and eco, let’s call it the goats cheese or transportation the Xtracycle. Name the date at Barney Allen’s and I’ll cycle up on mine.
George and Ed, after four years of discussions, a timely letter from the Tasmanian Dairy Industry Authority yesterday confirmed that i have just been given licence to commence making my cheese, C2, from unpasteurised milk. It will be available commercially before the end of the year.
Although this is only an exploitation of existing regulations (as George points out) it is a great first step and I think I am the only cheesemaker who has taken advantage of this. It allows me to get a foothold and push for further change based on evidence. I hope that others will follow, even if it just for competitive reasons.
I think that it is really important that consumers remain part of this oush, not just cheesemakers. it is an unfortunate situation in Australaia where there is strong consumer demand for locally made raw milk cheese but precious few cheesemakers interested in meeting this demand. I often remind myself that it was the public who brought about the changes in battery hen production and the success of free-range eggs in the market – not the chook farmers.
George – a morotorium on imported cheeses! I love it! Not sure WS will jump on board though. It frustrates me how strongly we hold onto our culinary cringe in this area. Some of the imported cheeses that I regularly see on good menus in Australia are nothing more than mass-produced crap (I have visited the factories, they are not artisan products) but because they are from France, have a nice wooden box with curly writing, we allow ourselves to be seduced. I suppose smoking used to make us feel sophisticated too.
Bruny whats C2 going to be like?
You are quite correct in the description of some very expensive products here are available i bulk in discount supermarkets in France but the packaging is so “cool”
Ed
First you have to have an industry.
Subsidy or tarriff its a complex question.
Yes, I’d like to hard more of C2. I agree on the mass produced products but it doesn’t mean they are all bad. Most of these imported hams that everybody is swooning over all come from factories just as many good wines come from big factory operations.
George, you also need a demand, the taste of the people needs to be developed. I sense the current problem is that the greater public only have the taste for creamy bland cheeses having been brought up on tinned brie and little decent local product. I’ve been in people’s homes when they’ve chucked brie out because it was runny and stinky no arguments. i’s the same as taste for beer (VB) and fruit bomb reds. By alowing more in while the industry develops hopefully the public is educated and gets a taste for it. Then, of course, we have the natural regular of the price of getting it over here which means the local prouct can be cheaper.We shouldn’t forget that immigrants or the well traveled (and we’re not talking Contiki here) who’ve bothered to go out of their way to eat this stuff are in the minority still.
I was talking to my Bronwyn & Michael Cowan of The Gypsy Pig on the weekend and apparently the bureacracy associated with Listeria has crept into their industry. Under new legislation, they and other small producers are now unable to produce cured meats until a public servant is able to tell them what exactly they have to do now to comply with the red tape. After numerous calls over the last month, they are none the wiser. Apparently there are others proceeding as normal, but GP prefer to do things by the book, which is sadly leaving them with stock they are unable to sell.
BTW if anyone is interested in making a submission re. the case for raw milk, I have just posted the template of one on my DDD blog that can be copied and emailed to FSANZ.
Structured by Will Studd, it came to me via my friends at Slow Food who are making their own submission. According to Kelly Donati: “…my understanding is that an individual submission has the same weight as one organisational submission so the more individual people who write in, the better!”
Feel free to modify it at your leisure or send in as is.
I agree that the imported cheeses that we get here are just “flavour shells” of the real thing in Europe. Having just eaten the most amazing cheese selection at Atelier de Joel Robuchon in Hong Kong (and a holiday highlight, Epoisses), it is twenty times better than the one I can get here that goes by the same name.
These imported cheeses are better than 95% of what we are making here, but are definitely not as good as when made with raw milk.
A cheese savvy french man was laughing with me the other day about the crazy price of Holy Goat La Luna (I think they have great products but are bloody expensive) and saying that it is only rivaled in price by the imported truffled Brie de Meaux, now thats scary. No wonder punters don’t know what good cheese tastes like because the price needs to be set so high, that it can’t even compete with something that has travelled around the globe.
Jack
Hey Jack, better buy local while you can. A cheese retailer was telling me a couple of months ago that Holy Goat was struggling which may help explain the high price. I agree that a lot of our artisan cheeses are expensive, but if we don’t support them they’ll just close up. As Ed mentioned, with which I agreed, our cheeses are rather bland, but the artisans who make them haven’t been at it for all that long compared with Europeans; the only way they can improve is if we keep on buying them and give our feedback. Also consider that the cow that helped make that Brie de meaux gives a lot more milk than a skinny old goat, you’re not comparing apples with apples. A recently bought Spanish mountain sheep’s milk cheese cost $98kg, okay, a sheep isn’t a goat, but it’s a lot closer than a cow.
I use to buy some specialy made cheeses from Holy Goat for work and I know that they have had some troubles; at the worst of it they couldn’t supply as they could not get enough mik from the goats because of drought and feed issues.
BUT, Holy Goat La Luna retails at $141 per kilo at Richmond Hill Cafe and Larder, and this puts it very out of reach of the general populous.
I’m not sure how to fix this, I hope they don’t just ‘give up the goat’ like Kervella, but the prices are just crazy. I’m sure the prices are justified, as there is no point pricing yourself out of the market, perhaps the Bruny island people can enlighten us on this and the necessary sell prices for boutique cheeses that can compare to internation competition.
Jack
Hate to disagree with fellow bloggers, but I think $16 for a little barrel of La Luna is an absolute bargain. I have never been disappointed by their cheese.
I would not be surprised if they are actually losing money on their cheese at present.
Work colleagues would pay that sort of money for a couple of ordinary sandwiches, a manky vanilla slice and a disgusting coffee each lunchtime. I don’t think that the price is out of the reach of the populace, so much as, much of the populace doesn’t appreciate good quality cheese enough to have producers charge a realistic price and there be a great enough demand.
Thermo you are not disagreeing with me, I’m more playing devils advocate to get a better end result.
I support Holy Goat, and buy their cheeses but what I am getting at is the big companies will continue to make the rubbery flavourless blocks, as long as people buy them and people will keep buying them as they can’t justify the expense to buy the fancy cheese instead of the King Island or worse. Perhaps its just too expense to make great cheeses at good prices in Australia because of our environment, I don’t know the answers but the prices just don’t help to ’sell’ the products to a wider range of people than the passionate foodies (sorry for swearing Ed).
Jack
Come on Thermomixer, it is quite expensive. But it is because of the economics of small production runs of a product that spoils easily and is difficult, especially for small producers, to distribute.
I can imagine though at that price it is difficult to make much money. Half goes to the retailer. To make $100,000 you’d need to sell over 12,500 of those boxes or about 240 a week. I ‘m guessing it is a problem of scale because there is little distribution or profile for local artisan cheese. Once volumes increase as the general public catch on then prices will come down.
I liken it to the wine industry where small producers have to charge a lot more than large. T’Gallant is one example where the price of its base Pinot Gris has fallen from $24 of something to about $16 thanks to being owned by Fosters. The winery still gets to muck about and experiment as well.
What we need is a few diary giants to do the equivalent but somehow I doubt they will and for now small producers will struggle.
Jack, we overlapped there. Swearing is welcome here but not the F-word. Could you use something else? Punk Rock Food Warriors perhaps?
Jeez, I’d hate to milk a goat. Comparable French goat’s milk cheeses at RHCL range between $110kg/$133kg, so in the scheme of things, given their tiny size and struggles with the drought, the Holy Goat La Luna does represent value for money, if you like a great cheese and don’t mind paying for it. The question is, who wants a cheese like this? Me, I’m for it and along with thermomixer buy it, not just for the sake of it, it’s one of mine and my wife’s favourite Aussie cheeses.
Guess it is relatively expensive, but then I consider it more of a “luxury” item. Yes, the analogy with wine is good – chateau cardboard, the bulk $8 – 15 – 20 wines and then those that we pay a little ( or a lot) more for and appreciate.
Bruny was saying that we don’t get European artisanal cheeses in our restaurants, likely that the economies of scale are the same here – too expensive to import for such a small market.
Not sure if the prices will (or should) come down that much for a while. The costs of production are rising – ingredients and labour.
We (gladly) pay $3,000 per kilo for a piece of mould that grows at the base of trees. I will support both of these industries even if they appear expensive, but yes, the majority of Australians would not agree.
Thermo, I’m not taking cardboard but the benefits of a large owner (with massive distribution) interested in innovation which can help bring the costs down. Given the chance and the education there must be lots of people who would grow into the taste of goof local cheese.
Sorry, I was thinking chateau cardboard = Kraft slices.
If large companies were able to support smaller producers while allowing independence with production, then I would support that idea.
Coming back to this very late… I don’t think anyone has quite said this, but apologies if I’m echoing someone:
The cost of good (and not so good) Australia cheeses is disproportionately high relative to many other foodstuffs. Reasonably good cheeses are much more affordable (or less dauntingly more expensive) in France or Germany, say. Aussie cheesemakers face real challenges to survive. It looks like a lose-lose situation to me: we can’t adequately support local cheesemakers from such a small consumer base, but if we open up the market for export/import, Aussie consumers are unlikely to prefer fairly pricey local cheeses over cheaper imports.
self sufficiency is the wealth of the future. one party is always going to get the raw end of the stick. so much red tape to make a buck let alone producing fine traditional foods to make that buck from. i’m going to have a crack anyway and if all else fails i can eat my produce but not my money. barter anyone?
i guess what i’m saying is that this whole conversation is about something so much larger than cheese. such a shame but yeah leads me to what i said b4, cheers.
Where’ve I been?
Just back from France actually. Found a little hotel on the Blvd Port Royal near Metro ‘Les Gobelins’ Paris.
Just behind the hotel was ‘rue Mouffetard’ pron: moofta (without the P)
3 amazing fromagers including the well known name ‘androuet’
Top end food street, 200 metres of the best food I’ve tasted in a while.
Interesting that 90% of the those cheeses were Raw, natural & extraordinarily delicious, mouth candy.
In Louis XVth in Monaco, the Ducasse extravaganza, all the cheese was from Raw Milk, at Mugaritz (what a lunch there) all Raw Milk.
We have to deduce that our less visionary cheese ‘in-cogniscenti’ want to maintain an ‘also ran’ or commodity reputation in the international marketplace, being price takers not quality makers. But I do ask “to what end”? What am I missing in this scenario, after all the perpetrators of the anti-raw milk lobby are not complete morons. Could someone enlighten me on their thinking?
David Brown who had been a long time friend until sadly, we became colleagues in the cheese business, has stated, as the ASCA President that it is a commercial decision to rail against Raw Milk Natural cheese, but fails to realise (or for some more obscure reason, fails to acknowledge) that although the Raw milk sector of European cheese production is only a fraction of the market, it generates a massive returns economically and in status, to those producers.
David’s view seems to be that there is no economic future there. He recently suggested to a Churchill Fellow that ” there is nothing to be learned about cheesemaking in Europe: we have it all here”.
I’m supposing that he also believes that they can’t build churches either.
According to my observations and those of the highly astute Sandy Cameron of the highly successful Meredith Dairy, the European Milk & Cheese industry is technically way ahead of us, not to mention the far more important traditional experience.
The winemakers at DeBortoli for example, young, intelligent & visionary, unashamedly draw upon European inspiration at every turn and aspire to the complexity, austerity, integrity and reputation of tradition to produce wines of similar character.
This should also be the pursuit of our cheese makers, fermented meat producers, chefs and any other food producers who wish to excel.
It is time to move forward and everyone should listen to the final lecture by Rupert Murdoch in his condemnation of complacency in this country & the intervention of bureaucratic conservatism world wide.
Well…… glad I got that off my chest.
Nick Haddow & I will get together to share our experiences at the Caseus Awards 2009 and beyond.
Good site by the way.
Hi Richard
Do you really think the Europeans know something about cheese? Holy cow ! Revolutionary. Bugger me, I thought we invented it down in the Kraft factory.
Only joking. It doesn’t take long in one of the fromageries in Paris to suddenly realize that we really are so far behind.
Look forward to hearing more at the next Grandview bash.
You won’t be written out of the history books
Welcome, Richard and thanks for commenting. It’s a sad state of affairs that our cheese making industry body has lost its way. You’ve reminded me that I must catch up on the state of affairs cheese.