Judging at the American Cheese Society

Judging at the American Cheese Society

For the past few days, the American Cheese Society has been having their judging competition at the Plumber’s Hall on Washington, a cool late 19th century space with lots of headroom and neo-classical architectural sobriety (on less sober occasions, like during the Plumber’s Union annual Super Bowl poker fest, I’ve lost a lot of money in this room).

The large chamber had an air of scientific efficiency, with judges walking around in lab coats, examining coded samples, precisely noting their observations, focused with studied concentration on smells, feels and tastes.



Lab instruments included a number of cutting and coring devices, called generically “tryers.”



I absolutely loved talking to judges here: everyone was so intense, so locked onto their work, so endlessly enthusiastic about cheese, which I guess you have to be. At times throughout the day, judges would retire to the back table to cleanse palates with melon, pineapple and water, but most of the time they were totally engaged with huge racks of fromage.

At the end of the day, I asked one judge, Anne Saxelby (Saxelby Cheesemongers, Manhattan), where she was going to eat dinner, and she said she was eating pizza -- turns out, it was to be prepared at a friend's house by Mark Bello, a good bud to LTH; I’ve had his 'za and it’s fabulous (gorgonzola and honey; interstellar). Small foodie world.

I asked Anne’s fellow judge, Bob Aschebrook (formerly a USDA butter and cheese grader), if he ever got tired of eating cheese, and he looked at me with disbelief: “Noooo, I could eat cheese for breakfast, lunch and dinner.” That’s probably a good thing.