Food For Thought -Cheesemaking Workshop

This week on Food For Thought, Canadian cheesemakers are enlisting help to improve their products. Here's the audio file if you want to listen to the show again.  Pictured here are Hilary Abbott, right, and Peter Dixon, a cheese consultant from Vermont.

Denis Huet is Hilary's right-hand man when it comes to cheesemaking, and is also considered as an affineur, the person in charge of carefully aging the cheeses.  It's an incredibly crucial part of the process, because as many things can go wrong during the aging process as during the cheese making process itself. Here Denis is measuring temperature of some whey that is going to be used in the making of ricotta cheese.

Here's a photo of some of Denis' babies.  One problem some of the cheesemakers in southern British Columbia have is simply that they can't make enough to meet the demand.  But they want to make some well-aged cheeses because along with the better flavour that comes from aging, comes a better price as well.