At 9:30 on a recent Saturday morning, in a Long Island City warehouse that smelled a bit funky, fifty-two people sat at two long tables, hunched over exams. At each seat was a sign with the test taker’s name and place of business, a slate slab, and a cutting board. The proctor, Adam Moskowitz, walked down the aisle, his steps echoing in the vast space. Suddenly, something caught his eye, and he squeaked to a halt.
About ten hands went up.
“Yeah! That’s what I’m talkin’ about! Lineage. Lin-e-age.”
The first hour of the fourth annual Cheesemonger Invitational was underway.
Moskowitz, thirty-nine, is the founder of the Invitational and the president of Larkin, a New York-based importing company that has been introducing Americans to specialty foods since his grandfather, Ben, founded it thirty years ago. Heavily tattooed and a self-proclaimed artist, entertainer, rapper, and d.j., he was reluctant to take over after Ben’s death because he “thought the cheese world was just a bunch of old, creepy men.” But after a six-month stint working at Formaggio Essex, on the Lower East Side, he changed course.
“There’s a paradigm flaw with cheese,” he said in his windowless office at Larkin, as the participants finished the test outside. A turntable sat nearby. “Two aspects make a cheese a cheese: the flavor, and the story. By the time you get the cheese into your mouth, the packaging is off, there’s no label, no story. The cheesemonger knows that story. And nobody is celebrating him.”
There are similar cheesemonger contests in Europe, most famously the International Caseus Award, in which affineurs, or the people who age and sell cheese, compete in a blind taste test, oral and written exams, dish creation, and the ability to perfectly portion a given weight of cheese with one cut—though Moskowitz considers it “super French, like, super wack.” So his invitational is more lax. There are still written and blind taste tests, and, for the ten finalists, a cutting test, a wrapping test (how many pieces of cheese one can wrap in thirty seconds), and a beer-and-cheese pairing portion. But a d.j. is involved. Drinks flow freely. This year, shirts were on sale that read “Holla for Challerhocker” on the back, promoting a Swiss cheese.
Despite this American-ness, Moskowitz and Liz Thorpe, the author of “The Cheese Chronicles” and a former vice-president of Murray’s, and an Invitational coördinator, managed to entice some of the biggest cheeses in French fromagerie to judge. Rodolphe Le Meunier won the title of Meilleur Fromager at the 2007 International Caseus Awards, and received the Meilleur Ouvrier de France award, France’s culinary Pulitzer, for his work. The collar of his white chef’s coat has blue, white, and red stripes on it to signify the honor.
Another judge, Roland Barthélemy, the chairman of the International Cheese Guild, also wears a white coat, with “Ambassadeur du premiere fromage” stitched onto the pocket. Laura Werlin, the James Beard Award-winning author of “The All American Cheese and Wine Book,” was also on the judging bench. A thousand people purchased tickets to attend the evening’s finals.
D.j. and beer aside, the morning’s events were serious. The written test had a few straightforward questions (“What is desiccation?,” “Name the breed of this cow” next to a photo of a sultry bovine), but canted heavily scientific:
Lipolysis is desirable in hard Italian cheese because it:
A) Makes the cheese glisten with triglycerides
B) Coagulates proteins to firm up texture
C) Liberates short chain fatty acids that contribute to flavor
D) Excretes fat globules for a lower overall fat content
The blind tasting round, during which each competitor had to triangulate the names of six cheeses, was a stumper. The highest score was thirty-one out of fifty-five, a solid F.
Each monger had his own technique. Katie Carter, representing Arrowine Wine and Cheese Shop, in Arlington, Virginia, inspected No. 2 (Serpa), then boldly pressed it flat to her nostrils to get a good whiff. Afterward, she delicately dabbed her face with a tissue. Joe Quintero, from Boston’s American Provisions, contemplatively rolled a small ball of No. 1 (Pont-l’Évêque) in his hands like clay for a full five counts, then nibbled. Next to him, his coworker, Mike Hanson, muttered, “This isn’t going very well,” before taking another sniff. “That’s definitely Cheddar. I think?”
Seven hours later, after a series of seminars from the event’s hosts, the doors opened to V.I.P. ticket holders and judges to sample each contestant’s “perfect bite.” Dylan Heister, a cheesemonger wearing a Sonics jersey, representing Williamsburg’s Bedford Cheese Shop, spotted the Le Meunier in his chef’s coat in the crowd. “Hey, Rudy!” he shouted, and offered him a fist pound, which Le Meunier reciprocated, hesitatingly and wordlessly, before heading to Caitlin O’Neill’s station nearby.
“I’m from the Jersey Shore,” she explained to Le Meunier, “and we’re known for two things: Snookie and Hurricane Sandy.” Blank stare. “So I made comfort food, my take on a tater tot—Cabot Cheddar coated in skillet-bacon spread and rolled in crushed potato chips.” Le Meunier took a bite and continued down the line, poker-faced. The only cheesemonger to get a perfect bite (45/45) was Mike White, of Ann Arbor’s Zingerman’s Deli, for his Bayley Hazen Blue with Italian chestnut honey.
After Moskowitz announced the ten finalists, to much hollering, each presented a cheese sign (Jillian Weber from Murray’s, on her chosen cheese: “If you like ’em young, ashy, and a little bit dense, then this is the girl for you”), competed in the cutting and wrapping tests, and paired cheese with a newly released Brooklyn Brewery beer. The air hung heavy, thick, and putrid. Between Moskowitz’s interminable mic banter and some disorganization, this took nearly two hours, and the crowd began to thin. The remaining guests, and cheeses, sweated.
Near eleven, fourteen hours after the competition began, Justin Trosclair from St. James Cheese Company, in New Orleans, took first prize. Outside, Le Meunier was talking in French to a friend. He’d removed his chef’s coat to reveal a black T-shirt with “Raw Milk Rockstar” printed on the front. The Empire State Building loomed behind him.
