Cheese Judge
The Big E Cheese Judge
In July, I got to be an aesthetic cheese judge for The Big E. As a cheese judge, I focused on the flavor, taste, and overall presentation of cheese. While I am still early in my journey to develop my palette, (we’ll talk A LOT more about that later,) I had excellent help and advice from those who were more experienced.
The Big E is short for the Eastern States Exposition, and it covers all of New England. Even Connecticut! It’s like a big state fair for all the little north eastern states. The fairgrounds in Springfield, Mass were vacant when I was there, so I could clearly see the layout. Adorably, there were buildings for each of the New England states, and it looked like there was a pretty nice beer garden. And there was even a cute little early American village. So I’m sure come September, it will be packed with food vendors, rides, farm animals, and people there to witness the spectacle. I see the Avett Brothers are playing this year. (Boo hoo for me that I”m working that night.)
Dairy in New England
Obviously, farming, and specifically dairy farming, has a long history in New England. You cannot talk about dairy in the United States without talking about Vermont. Compared to behemoth dairy states like California and Wisconsin, Vermont punches way above its weight. Interestingly, even Connecticut also has some great cheesemakers as well.
When you think about dairy, you usually think cow. Cows are not happy everywhere, specifically dairy cows. They need access to fresh water and lots of pasture. If you think about milk as a fluid that is being extracted from the cows (weird way to say it, but that IS what is happening,) dairy cows need a lot of water to just replace what they lose during milking. So it makes sense in the climate of New England, which is on the wetter side, there are a lot of happy cows.
Judging the Cheese
As cheese judges, we tasted butters, yogurts, and a couple dozen categories of cheese. We had a brief training on how the grading rubric worked, and we got to it. I have to admit, at the beginning of the day I was scoffing a bit at the other judges delicately spitting out the cheeses they were sampling. By the end of the day, I was spitting the cheese out along with them. It was not easy work!
What I came away with, besides knowing I am capable of spitting cheese out, was that I can absolutely identify tastes and flavors. So I was a little shy at the beginning in expressing opinions, and I normally doubt myself a little anyway. By the end of the day, I felt a lot more comfortable and felt more keyed into putting flavors into words than I had ever been.
In the future, I hope to share that feeling with you all in our classes. Developing your palette really does just take exposure and practice!