How many times have you gone to the cheese counter, planning on trying something new, but when you look over the rows and rows of cheeses, you realize you don’t know the difference between Gouda and Gruyère, or Brie and Burrata? So you buy what you always do: Monterey Jack because that at least has to come from nearby, right?
Janet Fletcher can make you cheese savvy, so you never again freeze in fear in front of the cheese cooler. (Full disclosure: Janet and I are in a cookbook club together.) For the 11th year she is offering the World Cheese Tour, a 10-evening series of tasting of artisan cheese and fine wine, which this year will be held at the stylish Winston’s Café (where ABC Bakery used to be).
The cheeses on the World Tour are small production and artisanal, and she teaches the class how to taste cheese.
“I tell them they need to ‘turn on all their senses,’ just as you do with wine tasting,” Janet explains. “In class, we evaluate the cheeses with all our senses: sight, smell, touch/texture, taste and even—sometimes—sound. We talk about the five ‘tastes’ sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami, and how they affect our experience of a cheese. Bitter is not good!”
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At the end of the course everyone votes for their favorite. Students will also learn that cheese is a living thing, changing every day, so there will be notes on how to shop for cheese and cook with cheese. She does warn with a laugh that “the more you know about cheese, the more discerning you become.” That slab of nondescript cheese from the supermarket suddenly doesn’t taste as good.
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