Cheesemonger Reads at Larry's and Compliments Wisconsin With Best World Cheeses

In front of an appreciative audience, Gordon Edgar read from his book “Cheesemonger” at Larry’s Market in Brown Deer on Thursday evening. 

Before he began reading, the cheese buyer for the Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, a food store in San Francisco, praised Wisconsin cheese makers, despite being from a rival cheese making state. 

“You have a multi-generational cheese making tradition here,” Edgar said. “So the ideas and traditions are passed down through families. We don’t have as much of that in California.” 

Edgar also praised Wisconsin’s local cheese makers. While on his tour, he said that within a circumference of about 120 miles in the Dairy State, he found several Wisconsin cheese makers who create cheeses that are “not just good local cheeses, not just good American cheeses, but best in the world cheeses.” 

Edgar pleased the audience by saying that he cancelled an appearance in Chicago to spend more time in Wisconsin where cheese matters.

Smiling he continued, “Enough sucking up to Wisconsin, I’m from California.” Edgar then read selections from his book.

“This book is not a guidebook. I’ve overheard people say, ‘this is a terrible guidebook.’  They’re right. The book extends conversations I’ve had in our store with customers.  It is part rancor, part description of how to work with cheese, part food politics, and part cheese information,”  he said.

The book is also a humorous and irreverent memoir, and the three selections Edgar read from had the crowd of 35-40 people in Larry’s Market laughing aloud.  He demonstrated the book’s wonderful humor by reading about a too-soft Taleggio that helped him learn about cheese the hard way, about customers who flirt in the cheese department at Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, and how he guesses what customers are really asking when he has to politely answer some strange questions at the cheese counter.

Among those enjoying the reading were several local food experts, including:

• My wife, Lucy Saunders, the author of  “The Best of Beer and Food” and “Grilling With Beer” and offers tips on pairing cheese with beer on the website beercook.com;
• Katie Hedrich, a cheesemaker from Chilton whose Evalon Cheese won top honors in March in the U.S. Championship Cheese Contest, a biennial competition held this year in Green Bay and the largest and oldest of its kind in the country; 
• Arthur Ircink, a writer for Wisconsinfoodie.com, a public TV series that focuses on local food producers; 
• Pam Percy, an urban farmer who harvests and sells eggs and produce at the Fox Point Farmer’s Market and a columnist for Shepherd’s Express; as well as,
• Larry Ehlers, Steve Ehlers, and the knowledgeable staff at Larry’s Market, renowned as one of the best cheese shops in the USA.

Edgar ended the evening by answering questions about specific cheeses, geographical differences between cheese making in the United States and the world, pairing cheeses with beer and wine, and working in the cheese department of a food store.  He finalized his remarks by telling people that personal “experimentation” was the way to find good cheeses.

Along with wonderful cheeses, the book “Cheesemonger, A Life on the Wedge” by Gordon Edgar (Chelsea Green Publishing. White River Junction, Vermont, 2010) is available at Larry’s Market, 8737 N. Deerwood Dr., Brown Deer.