A customer asked me to make her cheese and charcuterie platter on her own rather cool-looking tray with bone handles. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. Plus, Kat was there to take real photos with a real camera.
This one includes Pecorino Wiscono from Wisconsin Sheep Dairy Cooperative, Old Kentucky Tomme from Capriole, and Blue Jay from Deer Creek, not to mention Lomo from Spotted Trotter, Tennshootoe from The Hamery, and PRB‘s house-made Beef Summer Sausage.
One of the many reasons some customers feel a bit intimidated at the cheese counter is that they see so many words they don’t recognize and can’t pronounce with any confidence. We see not only among European/world cheeses, but also among American cheeses, words rooted in multiple languages, such that hazarding a guess as to their pronunciation feels like offering oneself up for ridicule. I’ll bet real money that some customers decide—consciously or otherwise–not to even try a particular cheese at my counter because they fear pronouncing it wrong and being laughed at. I want to say this loud and clear: anyone implying that he or she is more sophisticated than someone else because they know (or think they know) how to pronounce a foreign word is full of bologna. They probably pronounce bologna in a pretentious way, too.
My experience suggests that people fall into just a few categories when faced with this dilemma. Some say, “screw it, I guess I’ll just ask for cheddar.” Some show off their French or Italian or Spanish or Dutch or German skills and ask to try a cheese using a pronunciation that may (or may not?) be perfect in the language of origin (which sometimes results in a confused look on my own face, not being well-versed in any of those languages myself). More aggressive types barge ahead confidently with ridiculous pronunciations, usually accompanied by an accent they invented and a story about a Spanish hostel they lived in for a week in 1972: “I’d like to try the MoonchuGAA, please! I’ll bet it’s crap compared to the real thing I had in Madrid!” If I can figure out what they’re trying to say, I’ll grab it without daring to challenge their “expertise.” More modest types tend to say something like, “ooh, this one looks interesting, but… how do you say that… man-che-go?”
I’d like to make a few (hopefully helpful) remarks about this topic from the perspective of someone who faces this dilemma himself and watches others try to navigate it five days a week. Then, I’d like to offer some safe bets for pronouncing common cheese words in an American context. (For the record, I can’t use International Phonetic Alphabet symbols here, nor would I if I could, so I’m just trying to spell pronunciations in a way that I hope best reflects the sounds for English speakers. The result is imprecise, but that’s perhaps for the best. My post in general suggests that imprecision is normal and acceptable.)
Now for the informational portion of this broadcast. It’s either the part you scrolled down to immediately or the part you’ll skip. For your pleasure and (mis)education, here’s a list of some cheese words and their common American pronunciations (with alternatives as necessary):
ASIAGO: AH-see-AH-go. If you say this in a way that makes it sound like you’re about to name all the continents, you might wanna try again.
BLEU: This is the French word for blue. They say something like BLUH. But, you know, this is a word we can just as easily translate to English because WE HAVE AN ENGLISH COGNATE FOR THAT and it’s blue. I don’t know. Take your pick. BLUH or BLOO. They both sound kinda silly when you think about it.
BRIE: BREE. It’s unbrielievably easy.
CAMEMBERT: CAM-um-bear. Don’t say the t. In French, the middle vowel is more open, more like an OH or AH, and the R is barely audible (to my ear, anyway).
CHALLERHOCKER: HALL-ur-hock-ur. Were you Swiss, you’d pronounce the Ch with a guttural sound. (I recently impressed a Swiss customer by using the guttural sounds appropriately, but never told her that I was actually using a phoneme I learned in Hebrew class as my best approximation. Close enough!)
CHÈVRE: Fresh goat’s milk cheese is called SHEV or SHEV-ruh. I’ve heard the French pronunciation, but I can’t say it properly. Sorry, not sorry. I’m a cheesemonger, not an expert in the French language. I call it SHEV, which is perfectly common and acceptable in the US.
COMTÉ: I swear, I don’t know. Might be LAW-rul, might be YAH-nee. No one knows. I’ve heard, like, twelve ways to pronounce this very short word. I DON’T KNOW. I say COM-tee, which is wrong. And I’m not even embarrassed. But if you wanna correct me, please do so. (Just know that someone else will “correct” me in a wholly different direction.) I think it’s actually something along the lines of COHM-tuh with a barely-there final syllable.
CRÈME FRAîCHE: CREM FRESH. Not as tricky as it looks.
FETA: Americans think they’re saying FET-uh, but they’re usually saying FEH-duh. That’s fine, I suppose (I can just barely hear the difference, to be honest), but it does seem to rub Greeks the wrong way. They keep correcting me. Sorry. One very kind Greek customer told me in the gentlest possible way that Greek customers would really appreciate me if I would say it the right way, which is apparently something like FET-TAH.
FROMAGE: froh-MAJ. (The J is more JH—a vocalized SH—I can’t quite spell it in a way that reflects the sound: think of the z in azure.) It’s fro like fro-yo and mage like Taj Mahal. Look, French doesn’t even accent syllables, so that’s an example of the transliteration problem I’m pointing out here. If you don’t speak French, you don’t have to say these words as if you do (you probably can’t anyway). And if you’re bilingual in French and English, use context to determine which language to use. Sure, it might be a little embarrassing to say fruh-MAG-ur, but, you know, let’s just get close-ish so we can understand each other. BTW, fromage just means cheese.
GOUDA: GOO-duh. Every now and then, a customer will correct me. I’m not unaware that the Dutch say HOW-duh (with a guttural H), but a) that guttural H phoneme isn’t part of my speech—I couldn’t do it properly if I wanted to—and b) Americans call it GOO-duh. Likewise, Americans pronounce the French capitol city PARE-iss rather than pah-REE (with some kind of deep-throated R that I can’t do). It’s okay. That’s how language works. It changes with time and place. No worries. Just don’t call it GOW-duh. You’re thinking of an inflammatory disease.
GRUYERE: Americans tend to say groo-YAIR, while Brits say gree-YAIR. I, for reasons unknown even to myself, use the British pronunciation. I think I’m afraid Gordon Ramsay will yell at me if I say it a different way.
HAVARTI: huh-VAR-tee or, if you wanna get real American about it, huh-VAR-dee.
KASE: KAY-zuh. You’ll see this term as part of many German or Swiss cheese names, like Butterkäse or Sennenkase. (Btw, I’ll accept BUT-ur-kay-zuh or BOOT-ur-kay-zuh, the latter being a little closer to the original. Hell, even if you say BUT-ur-case, I’ll know what you mean, and that’s fine.) Käse is just the German word for cheese.
MANCHEGO: man-CHAY-go or mahn-CHAY-go. I often hear Americans say man-CHAIN-go, and I know this goes against my basic principles here, but I have to draw the line at that one. There’s just no reason to add a second n. In Spanish, the second syllable is more CHE than CHAY. I don’t care.
MASCARPONE: mah-skar-POH-neh or mah-skar-POH-nay. But many Americans, including Italian-Americans, say MAR-skuh-pone, and I don’t really understand why, but it’s common enough that I’m fine with it. If it’s good enough for Tony Soprano, it’s good enough for me.
MUENSTER: MUN-stir. The “u” can sound like that in “cut” or in “push.” Close enough either way.
OSSAU-IRATY: Hell if I know. Just kidding. It’s oh-so-EER-ah-tee. Because CLOSE ENOUGH.
PARMIGIANO REGGIANO: PARM. Seriously, that’s fine. I often say PARM REJ to indicate I’m talking about the real Reggiano rather than some other parm-like cheese. The more authentic pronunciation, if you wanna know, is par-mee-JAH-no rej-JAH-no. When Italian words include double-letters, those letters are sort of lengthened across two syllables, included in both the end of one syllable and the beginning of the next. But you don’t need to know that to order cheese.
PECORINO ROMANO: peh-co-REE-no roh-MAH-no. FYI: Pecorino just means sheep cheese. Romano means Roman. So Pecorino Romano is sheep cheese in the Roman (southern Italian) style. Likewise, Pecorino Toscano is sheep cheese from Toscano, or northern Italy (Tuscany, we say in English). And the cheekily-named Pecorino Wiscono is sheep cheese from Wisconsin.
PROVOLONE: Americans say PRO-vuh-lone, and I’d say that’s correct for American-made deli cheese in (very roughly) the style of Provolone. But if I’m feeling fancy, I’ll call real Italian Provolone by its name: pro-voh-LOH-neh.
RICOTTA: Americans say rih-COT-uh. That’s fine. Italians say ree-COAT-tah.
ROQUEFORT: ROKE-fore or ROKE-fort. The former is closer to the French and considered more “correct,” but Americans often pronounce the T and that doesn’t bother me for even a second. If you wanna be real French and put some guttural R stuff in there, go for it.
TALEGGIO: tah-LEJ-jee-oh or, more Americanly, tuh-LEJ-ee-oh. I’m pretty sure I say the latter.
TOMME: TOM (like the name short for Thomas) or TUM. You’ll also hear TOME and tome-AY. Basically, Americans haven’t decided how to handle this one. I say TOM. To me, TUM sounds pretentious, TOME is a long book, and tome-AY is trying way too hard, especially considering that the French word is only one syllable. But it’s a free-for-all. Do as you please.
Did I miss an important one? Lemme know. Most importantly, get thee to the fromagerie and put so much cheese in your mouth that you can’t pronounce any words at all!
The short and long of it: I received a wheel of Amoureux from Baetje Farms–a cheese I have fallen in love with from a creamery I adore–and it was busted. I can’t sell it. The ash line through the middle had separated into a chasm, such that it’s not possible to cut wedges from this wheel. It had “blown out,” as they say, a major flaw. It’s a flaw, I should explain, that should not reflect poorly on the maker, especially considering that they just recently starting making this particular style of cheese. And it’s an AMAZING cheese. Top five EVER in my book. But this particular wheel was just… busted. Cheesemakers use a trier tool to test the taste and quality of a cheese as they’re aging it, but that won’t necessarily detect a flaw like this. Every time I break open a wheel of cheese in the shop, I’m opening a mysterious box. Not even the makers know exactly what we’ll find. We cross our fingers that we won’t discover major flaws, and usually we don’t, but every now and then tragedy strikes.
As a cheesemonger, you order the cheeses you want but have no control over the quality at which they arrive. One thing that must be understood is that artisanal cheese isn’t like so many other products that can be expected to arrive exactly the same way every time, all year. Good cheese varies in quality for more reasons than I can name. It varies, most obviously, by season (which is why many artisanal creameries offer different cheeses depending on the season), but there are many other factors, some of which are difficult to control. The same wonderful creamery that cares deeply about quality might offer a cheese that’s wonderful one month and ho-hum the next. That’s just the reality of artisanal cheese. It’s also affected by how well it was transported. When I worked for Murray’s/Kroger, we’d sometimes receive shipments that would have been fine if the transporters hadn’t allowed them to be smashed in the truck or if they’d been better packaged to keep them safe. Or perhaps they didn’t control for temperature very well. I’ve seen wheels of brie absolutely demolished by boxes full of heavy olive mixes simply because, I don’t know, life is tragic and people are either dumb or not paid well enough to care. Hey, if you want consistency, there’s always Kraft singles.
There’s also the reality of how time affects cheese. If you get a batch of soft-ripened cheese that’s perfectly ripe and ready for sale, well, that’s not necessarily a sign that it’s of a higher quality than another cheese. No, you just happened to receive it when it was perfectly ripe. That same creamery offering the same wheels of soft-ripened cheese might send you a batch next month that’s not nearly so ripe. They haven’t done anything differently. Instead, the difference is in the time between the making of the cheese and your receiving it. Had you received it any later, you’d say that it was spoiled. Had you received it earlier, you’d say that it was too firm. The creamery can’t control that. Time controls that.
A couple of cases in point.
It can be frustrating, of course, but I have come to see variance as, in many cases, a sign of quality. It’s an inevitable product of artisans working with real ingredients full of living microflora and influenced by the environment’s whims. There’s something beautiful and natural about it, and I love that each wheel that arrives brings with it a bit of mystery, a bit of surprise, no matter how many times I’ve tried the same cheese before. There’s a bit of undesired gambling involved, though. If I buy a large, expensive wheel of something, I can get a refund if it’s faulty, but I can’t get a refund if it’s okay-but-not-great. And I’m one of those dummies who will tell customers, “I know you loved this cheese last month, but this particular wheel is a little more bland–still good, but not quite as mind-blowing.” But that’s the beauty of real cheese. Unlike commodity cheese, processed chemically to banal consistency and reflecting not a hint of terroir or season, real cheese varies as surely as the weather.
So this is also a reason to develop a relationship with your cheesemonger. If, for example, you tend to like your soft cheese super ripe and oozy, you can’t know that the wheel of, say, Mt. Tam that you buy today will be as ripe as the one you bought and loved last month. But if you came into my shop and asked me for the ripest soft cheese I’ve got, I would be able to point you toward what you’re looking for. I taste everything in the case, repeating the process over time until it’s gone. Perhaps I just got a shipment of Mt. Tam, but it’s still quite firm, not nearly as ripe as the last wheel you bought. I’ve got some Trillium from Tulip Tree, however, that’s as ripe as it gets! I could also advise you that if you’re not planning on eating the cheese for another week, you should go for the Tam–it’ll be perfect by then, whereas the Trillium may get over-ripe (if there’s such a thing)!
Alas, here’s the sad portrait of a busted Amoureux–the opposite of cheese porn. Cheese gore, perhaps. May the cheese gods bless you and keep you, creature of cream. You can’t tell from the pic, but the crack goes all the way to the rind, all around. If you hold it up to the window, you can see light on the other side.
I cracked another Flory’s Truckle yesterday. The excitement, somehow, hasn’t waned with repetition.
Customers often giggle at the term “truckle,” and I encourage every kind of giggling for any reason at my cheese counter, but in case you’re curious, a “truckle” is a British term describing a large-format, cylindrical (we often say “barrel-shaped”) cheese. Essentially, it’s in the shape of three wheels of cheese stacked on top of each other. A truckle is almost always a cheddar made in the traditional clothbound or “bandaged” style. (I’ve also heard the term used for a few other similarly shaped cheeses like Blue Stilton or even a non-English cheese like Pecorino Romano.) The cloth (often muslin) bandaging around the cheddar is typically slathered in lard before sending the wheel to age in a cave or cheese cellar. This technique protects the cheese as it ages, while also imparting earthy flavors and collecting beautiful, natural molds on the rind. Unlike cheeses aged in vac-seal, a clothbound truckle can still breathe and interact with its environment while aging, producing much more complex flavors and a more profound sense of terroir.
Mongers sometimes refer to cheeses in this format as “Barrel 3,” which just means that it should be cut horizontally into three equal sections (and then wedged out for customers from there). With a clothbound cheddar truckle like this lovely Flory’s Truckle from Milton Creamery in Iowa, I first score the cloth 1/3 of the way from one of the flat edges, all the way around. Then I cut through with a wire. With the disk I’ve cut away, I remove the cloth, cut it in half, and cut one of the two halves into quarters. These quarters will be placed in the display case, from which I can cut tidy wedges to order. The other half is placed in backstock. The remaining two-thirds of the truckle is still bandaged on all but the top side, so I can wrap it and place it in backstock knowing that it will still be in great shape when I’m ready to cut another disk from it and remove the cloth.
A truckle is a great format for a small cheese counter like mine because it holds up so well over time and yet allows me to cut very neat, proportionate wedges for customers without fully cracking into the whole thing at once, thus preserving its shelf life.
I tried to upload a video, but was reminded that I’m a cheapskate whose cheapskate plan doesn’t allow posting of videos, but feel free to check out my Instagram account to witness the process in action.
… is maybe too much. But on special occasions, it’s hard to imagine guests not being overwhelmed with joy to see a spread like this.
Real talk? The customer who bought this paid about $180. That’s not chump change, but it’s also hardly any more than he would have paid if he had bought all of these items individually and spent hours trying to arrange it so nicely for guests. And it beats the hell out of a stack of pizzas in cardboard boxes or a table filled with chips and grocery store hummus.
It’s a joy to arrange these cheese and charcuterie plates at work. I went for a tidy, geometrical look with this one. What’s in it?
Cheeses: Pecorino Wiscono, Hook’s 4 Year Cheddar, Goat Gouda from Central Coast Creamery, Brillat Savarin, Bayley Hazen Blue from Cellars at Jasper Hill. (One goat, one sheep, three cow, covering a range of styles, textures, and flavor profiles.)
Meats: Finocchiona from Spotted Trotter, Porteroni made in house, Tennshootoe from The Hamery.
Accompaniments: Mustard made in house, local wildflower honey, Marcona almonds, dried apricots and dates, cornichons, carmona mix olives, grapes, sesame crackers from Accidental Bakery.
In another post, I’ll break down how I put it all together and how you could prepare something similar yourself at home.
In a recent post, I gushed about Milton Creamery’s Flory’s Truckle. A couple days ago, I had the pleasure of cracking open another wheel. This one isn’t quite as aromatic and fruity as the last, but it’s still damn good. And frankly, let’s not expect real cheese to be especially consistent. It should vary for a long list of reasons (maybe I’ll address that in another post). McDonald’s is consistent. Ritz crackers are consistent. Kraft slices are consistent. But real cheese isn’t, and that’s okay. There’s always some anticipation when I open a new wheel–how will this one differ from the last? Sometimes I find something special, sometimes I’m mildly disappointed, but such is cheese.
In any case, cracking a big wheel of a beloved cheese is always a great pleasure. I feel like it deserves a parade. Sometimes I actually do take a little lap around the shop, holding the cheese above my head and making trumpet noises. It’s just so exciting! It’s an event! Clothbound cheddar is especially exciting because there’s such a buildup of anticipation as one peels the cloth away–the dust flies, the barnyard aroma fills the air. You convince a co-worker to sniff the cloth and then laugh when they make an ugly face. You cut into it, hoping not to find major flaws. You take the first taste and offer samples to co-workers and any lucky customers who happen to be in the shop.
For many cheeses, that first bite of a freshly cracked wheel is the pinnacle, the best it will ever taste. This truckle of Flory’s sat in an aging room for a year so some lucky jerk–me!!!–could finally open it up and enjoy the benefit of that long wait.
Cheesemonger: Because I mong the cheese.
Cheezus: This wonderfully heretical title was granted by a butcher.
Cheese Cutter and Sausage Grabber: Also granted by a butcher. A theme emerges.
Arranger of Moldy Milk: I bestowed this title upon myself, but I deserve it, as you can see below:
Ok, Mark, you talk a lot about working with customers, and that sounds fun and all, but I don’t go grocery shopping for the kicks, sorry. I’m not trying to be entertained or to learn the history of Alpine cheese-making. I just want to buy some cheese, ok? What’s wrong with just picking up a vacuum-sealed pack of whatever’s in the supermarket aisle?
Not a damn thing, friend. And these days it’s not just cheap processed cheese in the grocery aisle—you can often find very good stuff at the supermarket. But a visit to your local cheesemonger, even just on occasion, may inform your regular grocery shopping and might make even your workaday cheese habits more pleasant. (Seriously, ask me how to make your cheap cheese snack awesomer. I’ll tell you.) Here’s what a good cheesemonger can do for you that the grocery store typically can’t:
So I really do think that if you love cheese, building a relationship with your local monger can make an enormous difference. But I also believe that there’s good cheese in supermarkets and if what’s offered there meets your needs for a given occasion, have at it. Perhaps in another post I’ll even offer some tips for buying cheese at the supermarket. I mean, quick confession here—I buy cheese at the supermarket sometimes, too! I’d even argue that processed American cheese has its place in the world and deserves some credit. I recently tried a major brand’s version of provolone and thought it was pretty damn good despite fake smoke flavor. But it would be a shame to limit ourselves to the same old pre-packed blocks or slices every day. So, at least for special occasions, go chat up your monger and see what’s good. There’s a difference, after all, between good cheese and mind-blowingly good cheese.
I suppose the most universal definition would be the simplest: a cheesemonger sells cheese. But for me, and for many cheesemongers, it’s more of a calling than that. I won’t be selling cheese on this blog, but I will definitely be cheesemongering here, so there must be more to the definition than selling products.
Being a cheesemonger means being a resource for all things cheese. It means being the go-to person for information, ideas, advice, answers, samples, and of course a freshly-cut wedge of something delightful to take home.
I’m especially interested in the educational aspect of cheesemongering. It was in a past life that I made my living as an English professor, but I never lost my love of teaching. I’m never happier than when I’m answering questions or guiding a customer to the perfect wedge in the perfect size with the perfect plan for enjoying it. I love nerding out over the cheese counter with fellow turophiles (cheese lovers!), a bite of perfectly ripened stracapra in hand. Sure, I’m happy when customers buy cheese, but I’m not on commission—I don’t need to up-sell or pressure anyone. What really inspires me is making sure that customers are learning about their own preferences and experiencing some new mouth-bomb of flavor, perhaps learning a bit about cheese in the process. My pride swells when a customer returns to gush about what a great time they had sharing that wedge of blue they bought last week, and how the pairings and serving suggestions I offered were perfect, and how they couldn’t wait to return to talk cheese and try something else.
So that’s what a cheesemonger is. But what do we actually do all day? Well, go ahead and make the obvious joke, it’s fine, really: we cut the cheese. Yes. We do. All day.
We also care for the cheese, making sure it looks, smells, and tastes ideal by the time it goes home with a customer—that involves cleaning (or facing, as we say) the cheese, keeping our tools and coolers clean, wrapping, re-wrapping, keeping up with dates to make sure nothing stays in the case too long, tasting occasionally for off-notes and to check ripeness.
And, of course, we spend a lot of time talking with customers, sharing cheeses, putting sample pairings together. We learn all we can about the cheeses we order and the ones we want to order. And most of us are nerds, so we keep up with what’s new in the cheese world through books and websites and blogs.
We also get really good at cutting and wrapping, at picking up on slight differences in taste and aroma, at eye-balling what a third-pound wedge will look like.
I enjoy all of it—even the constant cleaning. Rigorous dedication to food safety is part of what I can do for my customers, after all. But what I love most, of course, is helping customers make choices and try new things and feel excited and confident about the cheese tray they’re planning to serve at home.
Not a bad gig, right? I make people happy all day! I am to adults what costumed Disney characters are to children at Disney World (without all the crying when it turns out a six-foot Goofy with a rigid, plastic face is actually just creepy).
Greetings from your friendly neighborhood cheesemonger! My superpowers are few (less than one, if we’re honest), but if a guy who obsessively learns about cheese for fun, shares that knowledge for free, passes out samples of cheese all day, and then sells you all the beautiful milk products your heart desires isn’t your idea of a hero, you can go eat a fishstick.
I’m basically a white hat drug dealer. I sell small amounts of powerful products that make customers’ brains buzz with dopamine (via casomorphins—yes, caso, like queso). I don’t pressure anyone to buy, but I sure as hell follow the classic “first taste is free” sales model. The response is often something along the lines of “thanks, but I don’t need any chee… OMG SELL ME ALL OF THAT IMMEDIATELY AND CALL ME WHEN YOU GET MORE IN STOCK!” Customers do that thing where the deliciousness is so overwhelming that they kind of squat down and rock as their eyes bulge. In public.
I work in Nashville, Tennessee at the beloved Porter Road Butcher shop, but I’ve decided to share my admittedly limited and potentially dangerous superhero skill set with a broader neighborhood: the world wide web.
So, what will you find here in your friendly neighborhood cheesemonger’s blog? Well, I haven’t written much yet, so I don’t know! But my tentative plan is to drop some knowledge for folks who enjoy cheese but aren’t necessarily experts. I’ve found that most cheese blogs are either A) written for a very limited audience of cheese nerds (like me) already involved in the esoteric world of cheese or B) they’re just cheese porn that doesn’t really help average consumers.
I’d like my blog to be a resource for the customers I most often work with and those very much like them—folks who enjoy cheese but are a little overwhelmed by all the options at the fancy cheese counter. My job—both when I’m working behind the counter and now as I write this blog—is to make cheese accessible and fun and easy for anyone who wants to step up their cheese game at home.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Cheesemonger 