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[Rahsaan]

originally posted by Thor:
I think the problem is the lack of concentration of quality producers...What makes French cheese great is experience and/or tradition coupled with skill, sure, but what keeps them great and at the top of their field is that the French consumer has unimaginable choice, and doesn't have to buy a lesser cheese if they don't want to.

The average cheese in France may be better than the average cheese in the US but it is still far from 'high-quality' (by our standards) and the French consumer is buying lesser cheese because it's cheaper. So much so in fact, that top cheese shops are closing in many of the small cities across the country and anecdotally I hear that the top shops in Paris, Lyon, etc are highly dependent on the tourist trade to keep them alive.

So, I'm not sure it is the concentration and competition that keeps these top cheesemakers going. If anything, competition and the need to survive would appear equally challenging in the US and both sides should feel squeezed to lower quality/prices to appeal to cost-sensitive consumers.

I don't know much about the better cheeses in Vermont or Wisconsin, but even the better Cowgirl Creameries and Humbolt Fog cheeses in CA do not make my eyes cry the way the gleaming pure cheeses in France can.

Of course I also develop less emotion about the cheddar family than other families of cheese. So..

 

[Thor]

You're right about declining standards (even though the esteemed Mr. Texier disagrees with me), and you might be right about who supports the French cheesemongers, but I still think the point holds: better products come from places where there's competition around every corner. Though France, economically speaking, may not be the best place to run this experiment.

I don't think that the potential pressure to lower prices on cheese is particularly relevant to the kind of luxury food products we're talking about, any more than I think what Gallo does has relevance for the wines we usually drink, or $2.99/lb farmed salmon is an alternative for people who are looking for king, but maybe I'm wrong about that.

As for the specifically-mentioned cheeses, I've never had a moving Cowgirl Creamery experience either (and I think the Red Hawk is regularly awful), while I think the Lazy Lady cheeses are -- when properly ripened -- much, much better than Humboldt Fog, which I think is quite good but a lot overhyped. I guess the solution is that, when you finally move to the backwaters of rural Massachusetts and have nothing better to do, we'll have to set up a blind tasting.

Or would that be double-blind by the Coad dictum?

 

[Rahsaan]

originally posted by Thor:
I think the Lazy Lady cheeses are much, much better than Humboldt Fog. Part of that may be my stylistic preferences, though. I guess the solution is that, when you finally move to the backwaters of rural Massachusetts, we'll have to set up a blind tasting.

Fair enough. And that could be a good idea.

See what I've learned. Lazy Lady, Jolly Pumpkin, all sorts of American Products to go on my shopping list.

Who said this place was Eurocentric!

 

[Bill Buitenhuys]

Two surprisingly good US cheeses I've had lately were the Truffle Tremor from Cypress Hill (think Humbolt Fog but with a sprinkling of black truffle instead of ash) and Bayley Hazen Blue from Jasper Hill Dairy.

 

[Thor]

Lazy Lady

Just one thing: it's pretty much a single-family operation all the way from husbandry to distribution, and the cheeses almost never go out at optimum ripeness, so you have to be careful when you purchase lest you get something way too young.

I like the Bayley Hazen as well (less enthused by the Constant Bliss), but I was just reading somewhere -- don't remember where -- about someone who feels exactly the opposite. In an older issue of Saveur, maybe? I really, really liked what Jasper Hill Farm was doing with their affinage cave and the Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, but after about 6 months of brilliance, the subsequent releases have been mediocre at best. I hope it's just a seasonal issue and they'll turn it around, but I'm worried.

 

[SFJoe]

It's a little out of the way, but they do a great job here.

 

[Seth Hill]

It's a bit farther out of the way, but Roberto Aguilera (ex-Formaggio in Cambridge) is now GM of Farmstead in Providence, RI. They specialize in artisanal American cheeses, and Roberto's a great educator. He does classes in Boston once-a-month-ish (where I'm an occasional guest presenter).