Head to Bra for a celebration of all things cheese

The biennial event Cheese – Milk in All its Shapes and Forms, organized by Slow Food and the City of Bra, is back for its seventh edition, to be held September 18-21, 2009 in Bra (Piedmont).

The festival has become an international reference point for dairy artisans and cheese enthusiasts from around the world, with its exploration of the thousand aspects of cheese, from dairy animals to the finished product. Every cheese has a long story behind it, its own identity and specific nature. By telling these stories, Cheese keeps these traditions alive.

United States is one of the stars of Cheese 2009.

For the first time ever the Americans will be having their cheese booth in the Market at Cheese 2009. The artisan cheeses represented will be from across the United States, including Vermont (Jasper Hill Farm, Vermont Butter & Cheese), Oregon (Rogue Creamery), California (Cowgirl Creamery, Vella Cheese Company, Cypress Grove Chevre) and Wisconsin (Uplands Cheese Company). Soft-ripened goats milk, aged cows milk, blue cheeses, cheddars and American originals can all be sampled and purchased, and the cheesemakers themselves will be on hand to talk about and sell their cheeses.

In addition, Culture: The Word on Cheese, the first-ever cheese magazine for the general consumer, will be there looking for new material, participating in the Festival itself, and spreading the word about the vast array of international cheeses to their cheese-starved audience online through a daily blog directly from Cheese 2009 (culturecheesemag.com).

The US will be also involved in a Taste Workshop dedicated to the country’s cheesemaking.

During the Taste Workshops cheesemakers, affineurs (cheese agers) and buyers plus Slow Food experts will guide you through a tasting of a selection of cheeses. You will receive direct information about the products, compare them, sample them, discover the best pairings and refine your senses so that you can make conscious choices. Here is the one starring US:

Friday September 18, 7 pm at Liceo Scientifico Giolitti
Cheese and Beer from the USA - LC008
A tasting of six American cheeses offers a chance to get to know the best artisanal cheese production from across the Atlantic. Led by Jeff Roberts, author of The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese, you’ll taste Pleasant Ridge Reserve from Wisconsin and Rogue River Blue from Oregon (both made from raw milk and Slow Food Presidia), as well as cheeses from Andante Dairy, Cypress Grove and Cowgirl Creamery in California and finishing with Coupole, a goat’s milk cheese from Vermont. The cheeses will be complemented by four US beers and two “guest” Italian beers from Le Baladin brewery in Piozzo, Piedmont.

About American Raw Milk Cheeses
Over the past 25 years, American cheesemakers have developed extraordinary handcrafted raw milk cheeses that highlight the unique flavors of the land, soil and climate where they originate. Often invented or based loosely on existing cheeses, American raw milk cheeses are as unique as the cheesemakers themselves and they reflect as much about the cheesemaker’s persona as they do their terroir. Hard, soft, cooked curd, washed rind, pressed, wrapped, they vary from huge 40-kilo wheels to tiny 100-gram forms, and are wrapped in leaves, sprinkled with ash, or crusted in salt.

The cheeses included in this Presidium project have a few common denominators: they are made with raw milk from either the cheesemaker’s or a local farm, and created by individuals with a strong commitment to sustainable agriculture and artisan production.

To support efforts in the United States to produce raw milk cheeses, the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity reconsidered the normal structure of a Presidium and focused on American raw milk cheesemakers’ needs and goals. The result is a presidium currently involving 24 producers, connected not by historical or geographic links but by common aims: the improvement of quality of American raw milk cheeses and the creation of links between cheesemakers.

Presidium cheeses are all made with raw milk from humanely treated animals living on environmentally friendly farms.

For more information visit http://cheese.slowfood.it/welcome_eng.lasso.