Cheese, really is something in North America that gets short shrift. If you’re anything like me, you grew up in a household where cheese came in those little slices with the cellophane packaging or a really bland, kind of rubbery cheddar that always lives in the fridge and you never really got to know about cheese.
Here’s a book that’s going to help you out; The Definitive Guide to Canadian Cheese by Gurth Pretty. This is the book that will give you the education of what cheese is all about as it’s made here in Canada.
As you flip through, pretty much every cheese maker in the nation is in this book and it has broken down by province, by region and it outlined who the cheese maker is, what their inspiration is, the cheeses that they make and where you can buy them. And it really is a fantastic book if you’re looking to expand your knowledge of cheese beyond what’s available in the cooler aisle at the supermarket.
And it also helps you kind of decide what you’re looking for before you go to the cheese monger or the specialty cheese merchant. Gives you kind of the background that asks the right questions to use the lingo and that’s if you’re, you know, so if you’re kind of intimidated by going onto a cheese store and say, ‘well I’m looking for cheese’ but you don’t really know what kind of cheese you’re looking for, this will give you a bit of a background so that you can go in and say, ‘you know what I’m, I think I want a cheese like this’ and get your cheese monger to pull it out so you can taste. It is a very helpful book in that respect.
The book also outlines the history of cheese in Canada; what’s the background, what inspired a lot of these cheese makers. As you flip through, you’re going to find cheese makers that are dairy farmers. They’ve get their own herd of cows, they’ve got the round herd of sheep or lambs from which they get the milk and they make the cheese right at the farm.
This is cheese from makers that are passionate about their product. You know that you’re going to get the best that you can get from this people.
So if you’re looking for a guide book that’s going to help you on your travels to understand cheese and your exploration of cheese, I think this is the book. And even if you’re only a casual interloper into world of cheese, I think this is a book worth looking through.
Let me try and get Gurth on the show to come in and talk about these people. To talk about the cheese maker so that we can find it a little bit more about it. In the meantime, go to your local book seller or your on line retailer and take a look at this. Thanks for stopping by, hope to see you again soon.
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