Cheese with a Drawl

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A friend passed along a nice article detailing the state of artisanal cheese in Georgia. Best known of them is Sweet Grass Dairy (winner of multiple awards at the ACS), but it turns out that there are many similar creameries in the state, and more every year.

[Pictured to the left: The Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum) is a bird in the family Mimidae, which also includes the New World catbirds and mockingbirds. The dispersal of the Brown Thrasher is abundant throughout the eastern and central United States, southern and central Canada, and is the only thrasher to live primarily east of the Rockies and central Texas. It is the state bird of Georgia. Photo courtesy of Dan Pancamo Photography under CC-Attribution-Share Alike licensing.]

VIAC October 2012 Workshops

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Vermont Institute for Artisan CheeseThe Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese (VIAC) at the University of Vermont in Burlington is offering three courses in October:

  • Oct 8 – 10, 2012; Artisan Cheesemaking Practices: Soft Cheese Family
  • Oct 11 – 12, 2012; The World of Starters and Curdling Agents
  • Oct 15 – 17, 2012; Artisan Cheesemaking Practices: Washed Rind Cheese Technologies

For descriptions and more information about signing up for one or more of these classes, visit www.uvm.edu/viac.

The Mystery of Microbial Mixes

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As I reported to the Guild last year, there is a lab at Harvard that is taking an unprecedented look into the microbial communities that make up the rind on aging cheese and they are finding astonishing interactions as well as residents that all help to create the local identity of our local foods. Now Dr. Rachel Dutton, a Bauer fellow at the FAS Center of Systems Biology, has piqued the interest of many gastronomists by studying the cheese rinds at The Cellers At Jasper Hill’s aging caves, and then opening up her appreciation of microbiological societies to look at other food fermentation processes like sourdough and yogurt. Her efforts have now been noticed by the New York Times Dining Pages quoting chefs that believe she is unlocking the mysteries of what makes the taste of place — what is terroir.