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The best cheese is MY cheese

2008-07-16

Your quest, should you choose to accept it, is to bring me a slice of the finest cheese in the land.

And where would I find that, exactly?

This week we're searching high and low, inside and out, over hill and dale to find the world's best cheese. We're seeking to learn from whence comes the cheese to end all cheeses as we set out on a quest to answer the question:

Where does the best cheese come from?

Here's what our readers have to say on the matter.

Elaine questions even her own guess as she pegs the best cheese as coming from, "Switzerland?". Linnea puts some real thought into this important cheese matter and says, "That depends on which cheese you are buying. The best cheese I ever tasted was a wonderful gruyere from France. I also remember a delicious firm white cheese from Neal's Yard in London. (The smell of Neal's Yard shop is heaven!) One of the best blue's I ever enjoyed was a local artisan brand that had been aged in caves in Fairbault, Minnesota." And finally, Jeff cuts right to the chase when he surmises that the best cheese comes from, "Where there are cows!"

This is one of the more delicate cheese questions as it may invoke a bit of regionalism or patriotism in each of us. What cheesehead from Wisconsin would dare say France makes the best cheese? And what respectable Swiss citizen could point to anything but their own hometown of Gruyere? We must persevere in our inquiry however, for the sake of cheese science!

I think between Elaine's tentative response and Linnea's eclectic one, the answer to the origin of the best cheese comes clear. There is no one best maker of cheese. It may sound like a cop out, but variety is the spice of a fully satisfying epicurean cheese experience. I shudder at the thought of deciding between my beloved French brie and my local Vermont aged cheddar! Who could be called upon to make such a painful decision? (Although I do have to acknowledge Switzerland as the original of the great cheese recipe, raclette!)

More precisely, however, I think Jeff has the most accurate response, assuming we expand upon his answer to include not only cows, but sheep, goats, ewes, buffalo, etc and so forth. Where would cheese be without the fabulous milk-producing animals who are at the heart of the operation? Cheesemakers, we certainly tip our hats to you (and attribute a lot of our happiness to your careful cheese making toils), but we must also give credit to the animals who so selflessly donate their milk for our culinary delights!

So I guess the answer to where the best cheese comes from can be answered using the same principle found in the common saying, "Home is where the heart is." The geographic origin of the best cheese is wherever your most recent "favorite" cheese was made. Today Vermont, tomorrow Sweden, Wisconsin next week, then France, Italy, Spain, India...! I am a cheese citizen of the world!

And come back next week for an indepth discussion of the question, "Are you for or against stinky cheese and why?" It's going to be a ripe one!


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