Judging Cheese

Just back from the World Championship Cheese Contest. Things were a bit slow this morning. From the descriptions in the newspaper, I understood that all of the cheesemakers would be offering samples. Instead, we saw roped-off stations where judges were evaluating various cheeses -- Mozzarella, Brick, String, Goat's Milk, Aged Cheddar, etc. At each station sat two judges, one from the US and one from outside the US. Watching people judge cheese is -- there is probably no nice way to say this -- boring. They cut it (with a knife ... not the other way!); they smell it; they touch it; they look at it; they taste it. Pretty much what you would expect. Over and over again. Fortunately, in the crowd of 10 or so people trying to get a sense of the action, my young twin boys stood out and garnered lots of samples.

The most interesting part of the trip -- besides a great Swiss cheese, which I sampled repeatedly -- was meeting Steve Perry, an entrepreneur from Texas who wants to take the award-winning cheeses and turn them into a business ("Wisconsin's Best Cheeses" or "World's Finest Chesses" ... something like that.) The idea is to sell the award-winning cheeses in school fundraisers. Wish I had thought of that.