Creme de la creme of cheesemongers
January 31, 2007 - The Montreal Gazette
LYON, France -
It takes a lot of chutzpah to preach the gospel of cheese in France, but Montreal cheesemonger Claudine Laverdure has done it twice. With waves of noise from air horns, trumpets, stomping feet and screaming fans, it had all the markings of a wild, five-day hockey game.
A veteran of the International Caseus Award cheesemonger competition - a sort of all-star game for the lactic set -
Laverdure, of St. Jerome’s Fromagerie du Marche, along with Jean-Luc Bouchard of Montreal’s La Fromagerie Hamel, was selected through a national contest in October to represent Canada in Lyon last week.
And here in the cheese capital of the world, they did their country proud. How proud? While France walked away with the gold (of course), Team Canada placed a very respectable seventh in a field of 12, missing out on fifth place by less than a percentage point in the scoring.
Over the course of the day-long event, the contestants were tested on the skill and knowledge required of cheesemongers - the people behind the counter at the cheese shop whose job it is to make sure we eat the good stuff. The battery of six tests that make up the Caseus Award range from cutting a monster-size wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano into multiple chunks of specific weights, to salesmanship and a blind tasting of six name-controlled cheeses.
Two years ago in Lyon, Laverdure and teammate Yannick Achim placed fourth out of 12 teams.
Though the contestants take the competition seriously, winning isn’t the goal at Caseus.
“It’s a way to push myself, to meet people and see other presentation styles,” said Bouchard, clearly happy to be rubbing elbows with the world’s best. “In Quebec, (being a cheesemonger) isn’t a well-known or well-understood job. ... This is a way to help us promote what we do.”
“The result isn’t important,” underlined Herve Mons, the competition’s founder. Mons is the first to promote the idea that the contest is about the exchange between contestants, and he also had some high praise for the Canadian contingent.
“We can see they’re making some major progress,” Mons said. “Plus, we’re starting to see some great cheeses coming out of the country.”
Team Canada received particularly high marks for their presentation of Monnoir, a creamy, organic cow’s-milk cheese produced in St. Jean sur Richelieu that has a long-lasting aftertaste. Though most cheese people aren’t natural-born limelight lovers, Laverdure and Bouchard added some much-appreciated humour and grace to what can be a monotonous 10-minute presentation to a panel of judges. They even elicited a rare “Bravo!” from Mons afterward.
For competitors, the event is one of the best ways to learn more about cheeses from around the world. Sharing the cheeses at the party that caps off the event, Laverdure didn’t seem too disappointed with the final standings. And when I asked if the months of preparation were worth the effort, she looked around at her friends and colleagues and said, “This? This is a vacation.“was represented in all three competitions, and though our teams fared very well, the exchange among contestants was often more important than the contest itself.
