I’m sure if you ask Cheesemongers to name the top three favorite parts of their job, introducing someone to a new cheese and seeing the wonder and love on their face would be right there. I know it was for me. Especially young people. Back in my full-time mongering days, I wrote about Encouraging and Nurturing the Next Generation of Foodies. It remains one of my favorite posts. Not because the writing was that good but for the fond memories it invokes.
One thing I hated and could not verbally address while mongering was to offer a cheese sample to a child and have a parent, usually a mother, say, “No, you won’t like that.” Now how the hell will a parent know whether the child will like something without the child trying it? In my opinion, which is right in this instance, it is so wrong to deny a child the chance to discover a food, good, healthy food. I wanted to say something, but knew Management would more than rain down on me if I chastised a parent. As everyone in retail know, the customer is not always right…
Now in my semi-retirement and days of mongering when and where I want, I still love to introduce my friends, my family and children to new cheeses; cheeses they have not had the pleasure of meeting. At Blue Haven Bee, where I spend a lot of time slinging cheese, the owners’ grand-daughter, Eden, who is now two, spends many of her days. Her mother and my good friend, Brianna, lets Eden try any new food that she wants and Eden loves cheese; she’s a cheese warrior. She’ll try anything and comes back for more. Brianna teases me that we are creating a “foodie monster” who will demand only the top-shelf specialty cheeses and I say, “Yes!!!” Artisan, well-crafted cheese has the building blocks of nutrition for Eden to grow-up healthy and more beautiful than she is now. Brianna and Caleb are not afraid to let Eden explore the world and all its wonderment and good food is at the center.
My dear friend Natasha who works for Murray’s Cheese is another parent not afraid to let her daughter explore food. Natasha shares Cadence’s adventures on Facebook and we get to watch her grow; get her hands and feet dirty and eat cheese… lots of cheese…. all kinds of cheese – stinky, creamy, dreamy cheeses. Cadence joins her mother on many visits to stores and the mongers share cheese with Cadence, introducing her to new flavors and textures.
Natasha shared the following with me: ” Every time we go shopping, I let Cadence pick out a cheese. She really loves Manchego, Raclette, Port Salut, Double Creme Brie, Gruyere, Aged Goudas and Fontina. She doesn’t really dislike any cheese, but doesn’t finish cheddars. We’ve had several positive shopping experiences with cheese mongers. From a young age, I’ve taken her to different cheese makers. When she was 14 months old, we went to Rocking W and toured the farm. Our best cheese monger experience came from when we shopped at the Holman Road QFC. Shane Stauffer, CCP, offered her Raclette as it was his cheese of the day. Shane has four children of his own and really knows how to connect with children, so Cadence responded very positively to him. She absolutely loved it. We bought an entire wedge. She proceeded to hike Carkeek park noshing on the entire wedge of Raclette the entire time. Many of the hikers admired her wedge of cheese with jealousy and admiration. Cadence is a cheese purist- not necessarily into the pairing items- just the cheese!“
Back in 2008, when I became a Cheesemonger, one of the other Cheesemongers at Fred Meyers was Laurel. She and I became good friends and in 2014, I had the honor of mentoring her when she took and passed the ACS CCP in Sacramento. No easy feat. A high percentage of those sitting for the exam, pass first time. Laurel did!! I asked her about Tristan, her smart, cute son; another up-n-coming “Foodie” :
“As a Cheesemonger, like you, my biggest frustration was always the same…”you won’t like it”. How do you know?! When my son Tristan was 2 1/2, I gave him Rogue River Blue and he wouldn’t have left any for me if I’d let him have his way. As he got older, he would always ask for Parmigiano Reggiano if it was being cut or shredded while we were there. He definitely took more than his fair share of samples. He is more picky now than when he was younger, but he is never allowed to say he doesn’t like something without first trying it. One of his favorite meals lately is a “real” Mac and cheese. He’s always loved the frozen Beecher’s ‘World’s Best Mac N Cheese” and he devours it.”
These are my kind of parents; no helicopter moms here… moms who understand that raising their daughters means they have to also let them explore; experiment; fall down once in a while; get dirty and discover the wonder of cheese, glorious cheese.
My thanks to both of you for sharing your daughters and their adventures with me. I love you both dearly; almost as much as I love your daughters!!!
In addition to being an American Cheese Society Certified Cheese Professional, I am a Certified ServSafe Food Production Manager with certifications that also include ServSafe Certified Instructor and Proctor. I am available for cheese events, cheese program development, cheese training, food safety training and 3rd party food safety auditing. See my About Me and Resume pages for more details or call me at 360 921 9908 to discuss availability.
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