Cheesemonger by Gordon Edgar

I’m not what you’d call a foodie. I do like to cook, and I’m working on getting better at it, but at the same time knowing the ins and outs of foods isn’t a passion of mine. To put it simply, I love me an Oatmeal Cream Pie that’s been sitting in the glovebox (aka Dessert Cart) for a couple days.

That said, this book is pretty entertaining for someone who isn’t already interested in cheese.

What separates this book from other food books is that Edgar, though passionate about cheese, doesn’t try to foist his passion on everyone else. Edgar’s cheese vocabulary is helpful. He doesn’t use a bunch of bullshit terms that have no meaning. Edgar’s realistic, unapologetic for growing up on cheap-ass cheese, and he must have taken half a dozen opportunities in this book to say that you shouldn’t waste your money on the best cheese if you’re putting it on a plate for a big gathering or preparing a meal for a large group. The strengths of the book are the writing and Edgar’s honesty. In other words, he is not interested in making cheese the new wine.

The book also has some pretty decent sections on running co-ops and the harsh reality of agribusiness as well. Definitely worthwhile if you’re any sort of manager, but also if you’re interested in the world of work in general. One could draw parallels to books like Waiter Rant in terms of dealing with some difficult people and the ways in which retail economics play into food.

The rougher sections, for me at least, were the larger geo-political portions. I think he may have some decent points about Reaganomics and our reasons for fearing French cuisine, but I was a lot more interested in the ins and outs of the cheese.

The biggest success of the book is in its desire to introduce noobs to the cheese world. Every chapter ends with specific cheese recommendations and the book ends with a brief guide on how to buy cheese. This isn’t a book for food snobs or people that think certain foods are only for people who know all about them already. Edgar can’t say it (though, without putting words in his mouth, he seems to dance around it) because these people are his bread and butter, or at least the spreadable cheese, but food insiders can be really goddamn annoying. They’re kind of like people who like a band only up to the moment in which they become popular in that they seem to like the actual product less than what the product says about them. To them, a food becoming popular is a bad thing. A club just isn’t a club if you can’t turn people away at the door.

After reading this book I was motivated to try a couple cheeses he recommended. I should point out that I don’t live anywhere near a cheese shop or even a Whole Foods, so these were purchased at the tiny salad-bar-cheese-counter-conversion thing at King Soopers. To recap: a know-nothing purchasing cheese from a place that probably spends more time deciding what goes in the Halloween aisle than the cheese case. So take it all with a grain of salt. The size of a meteor.

The first was Parmigiano Reggiano. This cheese comes up over and over in the book because it’s reasonably priced, hard to mess up, and because there is honestly a world of difference between the wedge of cheese I bought and the dust that comes in the green can. Don’t get me wrong, this is not me swearing off the green can. But the cheese is pretty damn good plain, and maybe it’s not the best use of good cheese, but try it as the cheese for your next Alfredo sauce. I wasn’t an Alfredo fan until I tried it with Parmigiano Reggiano. The flavor of the cheese is tempered a little by the cooking, I think, but the Alfredo has an actual taste besides salty milk, and the sauce had some stick to it instead of being so watery.

The second cheese I tried was Taleggio. The book said that it’s somewhat of a beginner in terms of stinky cheese. And stinky it was. The smell was…unpleasant. Biological. Foot-y. But I cut a piece off and ate it anyway. This is one of the few food experiences I can think of where the smell of the food was somewhat distant from the taste. It was like a horror movie where the trailer is scary as hell, but then you sit down and the overall feeling is much milder.

Taleggio, I’m afraid, won’t be finding its way into my regular rotation. The softness combined with the stink was a little, um, advanced for my liking. The texture was a little like a rubbery cream cheese. I know, really appetizing. But hey, as an adult you really never have to eat new things. When you’re a kid, you’re eating new crap all the time. You hate it half the time, maybe because it’s infused with the bitterness you feel towards your parents for making you eat it, but there’s something to be said for trying a new food variety once in a while, no?
If you are interested in food, or at least want to take a second look at that cheese case when you go to the grocery store, give Cheesemonger a shot. Hell, it’s a good read either way.