Gort’s Gouda Cheese Farm produces a wonderful variety of cheeses, many of them goudas, some of them made with raw milk.
At the end of the day, we all have the responsibility to think about risk, and to manage it as we see fit (what we eat and drink). While it is simply not feasible to eliminate all food pathogens, it is possible to destroy a food culture, a way of life, and a delicious product, in a rush to placate all and sundry. Accidents will happen, even with right-thinking people doing their best to be safe. I am comfortable with that reality. If you’re not, don’t eat the cheese.
On top of the world: Margaret Peters-Morris and Wilma Klein-Swormink.
Wow, Ontario’s Glengarry Fine Cheese rules the world!
Lankaaster Aged Loaf was crowned Supreme Global Champion at the Global Cheese Awards in Frome, England, on September 14. It’s the top award in the international competition that dates back to 1861.
“Being the big cheese in the world feels pretty good,” says Margaret Peters, owner of Glengarry Fine Cheese in Lancaster, Ontario, and the lead cheesemaker. She gives full credit to Wilma Klein Swormink, the plant manager/cheesemaker who has played a key role in cheesemaking at Glengarry since its inception in 2008 and continues to produce cheese with the dedicated team at Glengarry.
Glengarry Fine Cheese and Glengarry Cheesemaking are located on the Peters family farm which has been in the family since 1967, Margaret explains. “Our ancestral roots hail from the Netherlands and our parents have laid the framework for the family farm to grow and prosper in Lancaster where our parents started their dairy and crop farm which is now in the hands of the next generation who are continuing the dairy tradition and, now, the cheese factory is building its own tradition and reputation with the hard work and dedication that our parents instilled in myself and my brother.”
Congratulations to Margaret, Wilma and the cheesemaking team at Glengarry!
Margaret shares cheesemaking responsibilities with Wilma who is also the daughter of Dutch immigrants who also came to Eastern Ontario to establish a dairy farm.
Lankaaster Aged is matured to a minimum of 10 months. The cheese entered in the competition was made in June, 2011, thus, it aged two years and a bit.
The cheesemaking team at Glengarry makes Lankaaster with pasteurized Brown Swiss milk from the Reimann Farm just north of the plant in Lancaster. It is a loaf shape, weighing 3 kilos, which is Glengarry’s traditional gouda loaf.
It’s shaped like a loaf of bread in the Dutch style to make it easy to eat the cheese as a sandwich.
Lankaaster Aged is a firm cheese, traditional rind, characteristic gouda “eyes” present, paste is dark, laden with crystals, with lovely butterscotch, pineapple and lactic notes, the veteran cheesemaker says. The cheese lingers in one’s mouth and is suitable to make any “gratin” in culinary preparations.
In addition to the overall grand prize, Glengarry’s Lankaaster Aged won the gold medal in Best Overseas Cheese (Non-European) while Glengarry’s Celtic Blue won a bronze medal in Blue Vein Cheese. Celtic Blue is also made with Brown Swiss milk and aged three months.
Fromagerie L’Ancêtre of Bécancour, Québec, was judged to produce the Best Butter in the world after its salted and unsalted butters took category honours.
It is not known how many other Canadian cheese dairies entered the annual competition.
Quality Cheese of Vaughan, Ontario, which won the Canadian Cheese Grand Prix with its cow’s milk Ricotta, won the category of fresh unripened cheese made from sheep or mixed milk with its Bella Casara Buffalo Ricotta.
Canadian cheesemakers won 30 ribbons in the 2013 American Cheese Society Judging & Competition in Madison, Wisconsin, in early August, competing against 1,794 cheeses submitted by 257 producers in the Americas—the largest competition in the history of the ACS.
Twenty-three of the 30 ribbons were won by 10 Québec cheesemakers, four being first-place ribbons, two for Agropur Fine Cheese and one each for Fromagerie Fritz Kaiser, represented by Fromages CDA, and La Moutonnière.
Two Ontario producers, Mariposa Dairy, represented by Finica Food Specialties, and Quality Cheese, won first-place ribbons as well.
Best of Show was won by Cellars at Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont with the Winnimere, an extraordinary take on the French mountain classic Vachering Mont d’Or. Made with raw milk from the farm’s Ayrshire cows, Winnimere is wrapped in cambium cut from the spruce trees on the farm and washed in a beer from a neighbouring brewery. It’s available only January through June.
Here are the Canadian winners:
OPEN CATEGORY – FRESH UNRIPENED CHEESES – MADE FROM SHEEP’S MILK OR MIXED MILKS
It’s crazy way to promote cheese but contestants running, tumbling and falling down Blackcomb Mountain has proven effective—and a great deal of fun—for Dairy Farmers of Canada as it demonstrated again at the sixth annual Canadian Cheese Rolling Festival in Whistler, B.C., last Saturday, August 17, 2013.
When asked how an apparently staid organization like Dairy Farmers of Canada can sponsor such chaos, Wally Smith, DFC president, says, “Well, maybe we’re not as staid and conservative as you think.”
It was a delight to spend time with cheesemaker Debra Amrein-Boyes (above) and her daughter, Amanda Vanderlinde, the next generation in cheesemaking at The Farm House Natural Cheeses in Aggasiz, B.C.
While we’re on our B.C. Cheese Tour, we’re on the look-out for a venue for the western version of The Great Canadian Cheese Festival that we’d love to produce in the fall of 2015. Here is the short list of five possible locations, three in Vancouver and two less than one hour from Vancouver. Click on any image for a larger view.
There is no change in plans to continue the original Great Canadian Cheese Festival in Picton, Prince Edward County, Bay of Quinte Region. Dates for 2014 are June 7-8.
A 2013 Buick Verano Turbo serves as Official Cheesemobile for our B.C. Cheese Tour.
Francis has his Popemobile, CheeseLover.ca has its Cheesemobile.
It’s a luxurious Buick Verano Turbo to whisk us around British Columbia over the next three weeks. The mission is to see how much artisan and farmstead cheese we can enjoy—reporting on our tasting adventures here and on Facebook and Twitter.
As much as we look forward to sampling cheese new to our palates (and generally unavailable in Ontario), we especially look forward to getting to know the men and women who make the cheese. At our first stop, at Golden Ears Cheesecrafters, we’ll be getting into the make room to help make cheese curds.
Here’s the itinerary for the inaugural B.C. Cheese Tour, roughly in order of the routing we plan to take:
Porn, in the lexicon of today, creates or satisfies an excessive desire for something, especially something luxurious or delicious, thus, one hears of an addiction to real-estate porn, or the irresistible appeal of food porn.
Cheese porn has been raised to the highest level seen in Canadaby Plaisirs Gourmets, the Quebec artisan cheese distributor, with publication of its catalogue of artisan and farmstead cheeses produced in La Belle Province. The result is a thing of beauty while serving to most effectively market cheese.
The French language edition features all 15 cheesemakers represented by Plaisirs Gourmets . The English version features the eight producers who are federally licensed to sell cheese across Canada.
The photos here are from the French edition. They show how the catalogue is organized and presented. Each cheese is given a double-page spread (photo above) for a gorgeous photograph and detailed information, from the story behind the cheese to age, size, dominant flavour to awards won, ingredients and nutritional data. Each producer is also given a double-page spread (photo below) displaying an appealing portrait of the artisans who make the cheese and an outline of family history, dairy or farm information, cheeses made and contact co-ordinates.
It’s a classic example of how to market a food product beautifully and effectively. Our congratulations to co-owners Nancy Portelance and Louis Gadreau and the entire team at Plaisirs Gourmets based near Quebec City.
Fifth Town imports Cap Cressy from Lombardy in Italy.
Fifth Town Artisan Cheese has started selling Italian cheeses at its Prince Edward County retail store. The new owners have been importing cheese from Italy for decades as Bertozzi Importing of Etobicoke, Ontario.
Many of the imported cheeses—mainly from Piedmont and Lombardy—have names similar to names of the award-winning Canadian cheeses produced by Fifth Town before financial difficulties forced it to shut down in early 2012. For example:
Patricia Secord and Dr. Hugo Bertozzi, third generation producers, affineurs and purveyors of artisan cheeses, historically in Italy, and now in Canada, purchased Fifth Town Artisan Cheese in November 2012. The transition period between shutdown and start-up is a long process, the company said, but will ultimately lead to a refurbished manufacturing facility and world-class cheese. The cheese dairy is set to be producing Fifth Town favourites, like Cape Vessey, by early 2014.
Rafael Chavez, director of Fresk-O, looks over vats where his cheese is being made. Photo by Jason Franson, Edmonton Journal.
Rafael Chavez of Fresk-O Cheese has quite the story to tell: From Venezuela to Calgary to start a new life, to three years later winning the Canadian Cheese Grand Prix in the grilling cheese category with Queso Fresco. Click here to read the complete story by food writer Liane Faulder of the Edmonton Journal.
