She initiated the biennial Science of Artisan Cheese Conference and is cofounder of the website. One experiment at a time, these dynamic scientists, cheesemakers, and dairy farmers are reinventing the wheel.īronwen Percival is the cheese buyer at Neal’s Yard Dairy in London. Their research reveals the resilience and complexity of the indigenous microbial communities that contribute to the flavor and safety of cheese.
Around the world-not just in France, but also in the United States, England, and Australia-enterprising cheesemakers are exploring the techniques of their great-grandparents.Īt the same time, using sophisticated molecular methods, scientists are upending conventional wisdom about the role of microbes in every part of the world. However, Bronwen and Francis Percival find reason for optimism. In the process, distinctiveness and healthy rural landscapes have been exchanged for higher yields and monoculture. Reinventing the Wheel explores what has been lost as raw-milk, single-farm cheeses have given way to the juggernaut of factory production. Mateo Kehler, who makes a dozen different cheeses at Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro, VT, wrote the foreword, which proclaims "that the United States is leading the resurgence of artisan cheese and is the fastest growing market for specialty cheese on the planet", and goes on to ask: "Can we Americans be the saviors of French terroir?" (De Gaulle's 246 cheeses.In little more than a century, industrial practices have altered every aspect of the cheesemaking process, from the bodies of the animals that provide the milk to the microbial strains that ferment it. This tome ought, perhaps, to have been "The Vermont Companion to Cheese", Vermont being the home state of the editor, Catherine Donnelly, and of a good number of her contributors. The problem is akin to terroir as defined by the Companion: "factors said to give particular characteristics to foods historically made in this area, conferring the taste of their terroir".
Does the new Oxford Companion to Cheese belong on the same shelf?Īlmost. It is a reflection on the state of our foodie culture, my tablemates and I agreed, that the purpose of their authoritative presence was obviously to settle bets. 40 (US $65).ĭining at a smart, new London restaurant recently, I noticed near our table a bookshelf with only three volumes, a Larousse gastronomique, The Oxford Companion to Food and The Oxford Companion to Wine.
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