CHEESYCHANGES
like, ‘Yeah, that’s my girl.’”
Along with all the noisier revolutions of late, there is a quiet if pungent one happening in dairy cases across the United States. Cheese, traditionally named for a place of origin — Brie, Stilton, with the occasional Jack or Brillat-Savarin muscling in — now often broadcasts its inherently feminine constitution.
“As it should be,” said Seana Doughty, 46, of Bleating Heart Cheese in Tomales, California, who has created both Fat Bottom Girl, named for both a Queen song and its lovably variable shape, and Shepherdista, alluding to Doughty’s proud fondness for fashion. “Last time I checked, you couldn’t milk boys!” Rrright? which she proclaimed that “The Future (And Past!) of Cheese Is Female.”
Then came the Kraft brothers and their convenient processed singles of mid-century; the slick bricks of Velveeta, Philadelphia and Cracker Barrel.
Second-wave pioneers taking back the land in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s included Judy Schad of Capriole Inc. in Greenville, Indiana; Laini Fondiller of Lazy Lady Farm in Westfield, Vermont; and Sue Conley and Peggy Smith of Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes Station, California.
Last year, Schad, 75, introduced Flora, named for her grandmother, who made cheese under less than ideal conditions on her back porch. It joined Piper’s Pyramide, inspired by Schad’s own first, redheaded granddaughter (“bright and spicy — just like her namesake!”); Sofia, for a long-time friend (“a queen at any age!”); and Julianna, after a Hungarian intern. “Beneath her wrinkly exterior lies a complexity not often found in such a young cheese,” reads Capriole’s description of the Wabash Cannonball, a popular, prizewinning cheese named for the folk song about a fictional train sung by Johnny Cash.
“I think these cheeses are women — and sometimes they’re ladies, sometimes they’re not,” Schad said. “But the flavour is subtle. They don’t hit you over the head with a rolling pin.” A commonly cited fantasy
Plan B among urban paperpushing professionals, the artisanal-cheese business has surged in recent years, with more than 900 specialty cheese makers in the United States, according to the American Cheese Society, a non-profit trade organisation in Denver. The ACS does not keep data on gender, said its executive director, Nora Weiser, but compared with the bro-centric field of craft beer, where female brewers have struggled to get respect and recognition despite significant contributions, cheese making is a relative haven. Membership has more than doubled since 2005 and now numbers 1,800. “There aren’t many breakoff groups, because there don’t need to be,” Weiser said.
The ACS said there were over 2,000 entrants in the Annual Judging & Competition last July, a kind of Golden Globes for the curds-and-whey crowd, up from 89 in 1985. Winning second place in the category of “Farmstead Cheeses Aged 60 Days+ With a 39 per cent or Higher Moisture Content (Cow’s Milk)” was Womanchego, a familiar sight near the She Wolf Bakery booth at the farmers’ market in Union Square in Manhattan, where many high-powered restaurateurs shop.
“It’s very quickly the one that people gravitate toward the most, and now they are extra-delighted because of the sexual and political climate,” said Mark Gillman, 48, a founder with his mother of Cato Corner Farm in Colchester, Connecticut, which has manufactured Womanchego since 2004. The farm later added spinoffs: Wise Womanchego, aged more than one year, and an elusive middle-aged version, Mrs Robinson (all christened by women, Gillman hastened to add).
Sarah Marcus, 49, who formerly worked for the music industry, named her Briar Rose Creamery in Dundee, Oregon, after a song invoking Sleeping Beauty, a woman who wakes up to her passion. On its roster are Freya’s Wheel, a Norse name for the constellation more commonly known as Orion; Iris, after the Greek goddess of the rainbow and, for a goat cheese washed in beer, Lorelei. “She’s delicious and luscious, but Lorelei is a river mermaid, a siren,” Marcus said. “She lured sailors to their doom.”
Down South is Kathryn Spann, who practised international law in New York City for a dozen years, for a time alongside Eliot Spitzer when he was attorney general. She is now an owner of Prodigal Farm in Rougemont, North Carolina, and sells,