This cheddar tastes like Grizzly Bear: Trendspotting at the SXSW of cheese
Whether music or cheese, trends are trends
Cathy Strange says (artisinal) cheese.
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This weekend a horde of cheesemakers from the far reaches of the nation descend on Austin for the American Cheese Society’s annual conference—this year appropriately titled, “Cheese In The Heart Of Texas.” Some might say it’s the SXSW for the dairy industry, with new artisanal blends taking the place of indie dance bands, and “How The Internet Is Ruining Music Forever” panels swapped for mentoring sessions on the art of properly aging cheese. And like the annual race for bands to get signed, there’s even a contest with more than 1,000 cheeses competing in more than 100 different categories. (While many of the conference events aren’t open to the public, interested parties can partake of the limited-availability Cheese In the Heart Of Texas tour and meet local cheesemakers at Saturday’s Festival Of Cheese, as well as check out the cheese sale on Sunday, where aficionados can procure rare and expensive cheeses at bargain prices.) Since no annual festival is complete without kowtowing to trends, The A.V. Club spoke with Cathy Strange, conference co-chair and global cheese buyer for Whole Foods Market, about which buzzworthy cheeses are like the laptop-toting hip-hoppers and banjo-playing neo-folkies of this year’s festival.
Trend #1: Macerated cheese
Cathy Strange: “If you look at the categories, you can see where cheesemakers have embraced different ways of presenting cheese. What comes to mind is the Drunken Goat cheese from Murcia, Spain. It was one of the first cheeses macerated in wine. It imparts a little bit of flavor but it’s also a really unique visual. You’re going to be seeing a lot of cheese right now that’s macerated. Three years ago, there wasn’t anything in the United States that was really macerated.”
Similar to: French electro house. Like sample-heavy Daft Punk acolytes, it’s all about the process: For example, the Drunken Goat cheese to which Strange refers is a semi-firm, pasteurized goat cheese that has been soaked in doble pasta wine for 48-72 hours. The process turns the outside of the wheel a deep, grapey purple, which starkly contrasts the creamy white of the cheese itself.
Trend #2: The Blues
CS: “There are more cheesemakers in the United States that are making blue cheeses, so the popularity is really coming to the forefront. Blue cheese in America in the past has been very stringent, very sharp on the back end. We didn’t really age our blues a really long time; we thought of blues as being only for salads. People are now realizing that we can have complex blues, so we see that category growing.”
Similar to: Americana revival. Much as bands like The Avett Brothers and My Morning Jacket have turned vintage country and Southern rock sounds into something wholly new, the current strain of blue cheese takes something simple and gives it postmodern depth. A prime example is the Rogue Creamery Oregon Blue, which comes from single-origin milk from the Rogue View Dairy in southwest Oregon. The cheese is softly crumbly, with a buttery mouthfeel and a tartly fruity blue vein marbled throughout. Try it with some figs, a crisp white wine, and crusty rustic bread.
Trend #3: Strong-tasting cheeses
CS: "What we’re seeing now is cheese aged a little longer. The population likes a little bit stronger cheese due to more extensive travel, more sophisticated palates, and a large population of baby boomers that are aging and losing their taste buds. In Europe, it’s not uncommon to find very flavorful, complex, strong-tasting cheeses."
Similar to: Intelligent metal. In the same way that bands like Isis have revised the hard rock template to include more expressive passages, strong-tasting cheeses aren’t just about overpowering anymore. Take, for example, Humboldt Fog from Cypress Grove Chevre in Arcata, California. This visually striking cheese—which took first-place awards at the 1998, 2002, and 2005 conferences—is made in the Morbier style (layering thick morning and thinner evening milks) and has a line of vegetable ash running through the middle. The first note packs the unmistakable tang of goat cheese and blooms on the tongue with a creamy finish.
Trend #4: Local, fresh cheese producers and raw milk cheeses
CS: “Cheese has to age 60 days, according to regulatory guidelines, so what you’re seeing is that people are not as afraid to produce those cheeses that have a lot of flavor.”
Similar to: Self-taught, go-for-broke musicians like Matt And Kim. Strange stresses that there will be vendors in whose cheeses are typically only sold at local farmers’ markets and who traffic in small batches only; this will be cheese-loving Austinites’ sole opportunity to experience many of the cheeses on offer, and the immediacy of the aging process means everything is as in-your-face as it gets.
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