Joe Ray

January 26, 2005 - The Chicago Tribune

LYON, France—The greats gathered together on Saturday in the homeland of cheese.

Some of the world’s top cheesemongers came to France to compete in the first International Caseus Award, a competition pitting two-person teams from 12 countries against each other for five hours of tests and trials. (Caseus is the Latin word for cheese.)

And the winner is ... France? Not this year. France landed square in the middle of the 12-team field, placing behind first-place Germany and other countries less known for their cheese culture, such as Sweden and Canada.

Getting caught up in who scored what, or who won at Caseus, however, is missing the point.

“We’re starting to think that cheese is something that just comes in plastic,” said Herve Mons, the event’s founder and one of the best-known cheesemakers and cheesemongers in France. “It’s more than that and there’s a person behind it.”

Prior to the event, cheesemonger Cherif Bourbit gave the event some perspective from his Parisian cheese shop.

“They say you need 20 years to become a master cheesemonger,” he said. “A master needs to know how to age cheese, present it, cut it and counsel his clients.”

Sales technique, cutting, a blind tasting and a multiple-choice test were included at the Lyon contest, which is part of the giant food trade show SIRHA (also home to the chef cook-off known as the Bocuse d’Or held this week). The U.S. was not represented in the first-come, first-serve competition that was limited to only 12 countries.

To kick off the cheese contest, each team artfully crammed their best cheeses into and on top of a five-foot counter.

Team England, a duo from London’s legendary Neal’s Yard Dairy, lugged entire wheels of the British Isles’ famously huge cheeses and started the preliminary work of cutting them down to size at 5:30 that morning.

“We didn’t even have breakfast,” said bleary-eyed team member Chris Angwin George.
After the display was set up, each team split up for the remaining tasks.

One team member in the French contingent was charged with cutting a near 90-pound wheel of French Comte into 47 hunks of three different weights. The French produced beautiful, artfully arranged wedges.

Neal’s Yard wasn’t so lucky; its Handee Cheese Cutter, a heavy-looking contraption using a wire attached to a fixed base, was ruled illegal by the judges and Angwin George ended up using flimsy chef’s knives to hack through the hard cheese. He finished with bandages on his thumbs.

“We were kind of like a clumsy teenage child and not someone who’s been doing it for generations, but we make up for it with enthusiasm,” said a smiling Randolph Hodgson, an event judge and owner of Neal’s Yard and Angwin George’s boss.

British cheesemongers Chris Angwin George, cutting a Gorwydd Caerphilly cheese, and Jonathan Thrupp ham it up at the Caseus competition in Lyon, France. Photos for the Tribune by Joe Ray.

For the sales presentation, four judges in black jackets, backs to the audience and looking a bit like a flock of penguins, shuffled down the line from one team to the next, pretending to need a cheese platter for 15, including two children. One judge pretended that her car was double-parked, she was in a hurry and needed the cheese fast.

Each team handled the presentation differently; Neal’s Yard contestants tasted the cheeses along with the judges/clients, while others used different approaches.

When the judges reach a smiling Irish contestant named Julian Nivard, they bent their bodies to follow his every movement like they had been charmed.

“They acted like [normal] people…only with notebooks and pens,” said Nivard, after the judges walked by. “They were actually very good customers and were satisfied, I think.”

Behind the sales area, other team members were conducting a blind tasting of six cheeses, having to name them and list their defining characteristics.

“I think I got five out of six,” said Canadian Yannick Achim, “but it was a salty blue one that threw me off.”

Finally, there was the multiple choice test. When they had finished, everyone began to talk cheese with what Achim calls their “amis de fromage [cheese friends].”

“This was an extraordinary experience and exchange,” he said, seemingly forgetting that the event is a competition. “In Quebec there are few market cheesemongers. This gives us a sense of where we fit in in the world.”

“This cheese reminds us of history,” said Paulette Klages, speaking about the Sainte Maure de Touraine goat cheese that won a people’s choice award for the German team. “There’s cheese and culture—it’s got it all.”