I’m home, and the festival was fun. It was a competition between cheese makers, companies that is. After the week long festival for the businesses, they put all of the cheeses that were in the competition out and let everyone taste them. It was geared around businesses, but they opened the tasting to the public. The had all of the ribbons on the cheeses that had won.
They had a big room with islands of tables here and there, covered with cheese. I bet it took a army of people to cut up all of that cheese and put it out there. They had a map of the room, telling you what cheeses were where. I couldn’t see the map because I was holding my plate and my wine glass with one hand and picking up cheeses with the other.
They had an island for cheddar, American cheeses, Cheeses with additives, Smoked Cheese, Soft Cheese, Cheeses made in the style of other countries like Gouda, Swiss, Parmesan, etc. Then they had Washed Rind Cheeses, and Mold ripened Cheeses.
I tasted so much cheese from so many places. On the way home last night I was thinking of what cheeses I had tasted and which ones stuck out in my mind. There was the best bleu cheese I ever had in my life. When I put it in my mouth I did the immediate HHHMMMMM. It amazed me the difference in the quality of that cheese and cheeses that I buy at the grocery store. It was rich, and creamy, and soft and had a really strong bleu flavor to it. I really liked the cheeses with additives too. There was a cheddar with cranberries. I had no idea that cheddar and cranberry went together so well. There was Jack cheese with every additive you can think of but I really liked the garlic onion flavored one. They used powders in it, and it had a good flavor to it, but it wasn’t as strong as Tim Smith’s Cotswold recipe. The gouda with black mustard seed was delicious. I meant to taste the gouda with cumin but at that point I was done! The Stella Baby Swiss was excellent. When I tasted it I thought how I wish my Swiss was that good.
Of course when you are at an Artisan Cheese competition you would want to be that good.
I bought a new book “Artisan Cheese Making At Home by Mary Karlin, Techniques & Recipes for Mastering World Class Cheeses”. It’s not just the basic recipes, it has some recipes from cheese makers who are in business. It has a lot of ideas for additives and covering the cheese with herbs and stuff. Instead of saying to use mesophilic culture, it uses different cultures in different cheeses.
It was a great trip. If the festival comes to Atlanta, I will go again. I will not drive 7 hours to go to it again though.
We have pictures to post, but the camera is still in the car. Maybe later today we will get them downloaded.
