Latest / The Restaurant Guys / American Artisan Cheese, Local Food, and New Jersey Originals | Jeffrey Roberts

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American Artisan Cheese, Local Food, and New Jersey Originals | Jeffrey Roberts · The Restaurant Guys

• 1:12
  Francis: How are you this
• 1:12
  Mark: morning?
• 1:13
  Mark: I'm doing very well.
• 1:14
  Francis: So am I.
• 1:15
  Mark: I'm doing very well.
• 1:15
  Mark: You know, one of the reasons I'm doing well,
• 1:17
  Francis: why is that?
• 1:18
  Mark: Because there are are a broad array of foods that I eat over in time and even throughout a day there are just so many different varieties of food that I get to.
• 1:28
  Francis: Gee, mark, we're all happy for you.
• 1:30
  Francis: We live in America.
• 1:31
  Francis: What are you talking about?
• 1:33
  Mark: I'm talking about, I'm looking at, in Gourmet Magazine there is a, just a little snippets, little, you know, food facts.
• 1:40
  Mark: And one of the food facts is one in five Americans live on a diet of 10 foods or fewer.
• 1:47
  Francis: Yeah.
• 1:48
  Francis: My niece just eats chicken.
• 1:50
  Francis: That's it.
• 1:52
  Francis: That's fewer.
• 1:53
  Mark: My 4-year-old eats more than 10 foods.
• 1:55
  Mark: Yeah.
• 1:55
  Mark: So I don't know if this counts, but, but some of the most common choices.
• 1:59
  Francis: No, no, this is scary.
• 2:00
  Francis: Hold on a second.
• 2:01
  Francis: in case you're scared that people survive on a diet of 10 foods or fewer in the, the, the most wonderful food market the world has ever seen with Right.
• 2:08
  Mark: Is are one of the foods that, in that they eat only, uh, quinoa, the miracle grain of the Andes, a complete protein from, is that one of those?
• 2:16
  Francis: I don't think so.
• 2:17
  Mark: I don't think so
• 2:18
  Francis: either.
• 2:18
  Francis: A, according to this, article in Gourmet Magazine, one in five Americans live on a diet of 10 foods or fewer.
• 2:24
  Francis: But among the most common choices of people who have only 10 things in their diet, they have things like french fries, fried chicken, cho chocolate chip cookies, and craft, macaroni and cheese.
• 2:37
  Mark: Can I tell you something?
• 2:38
  Francis: Invest in craft.
• 2:39
  Mark: No, no, no.
• 2:39
  Mark: If I can I tell you something?
• 2:41
  Mark: Really?
• 2:41
  Francis: What
• 2:42
  Mark: if I had to be limited to only 10 foods in the world?
• 2:45
  Francis: Chocolate chip cookies
• 2:46
  Mark: would be there.
• 2:46
  Mark: One of them would be chocolate and chip cookies.
• 2:48
  Francis: Yeah.
• 2:48
  Francis: But you're not living.
• 2:50
  Mark: And I can also tell you that french fries might be a second one.
• 2:53
  Mark: I,
• 2:53
  Francis: but no wonder you're fat, not you.
• 2:56
  Francis: I mean everybody in general America, there
• 2:57
  Mark: really is no wonder I'm fat with all the foodies.
• 2:59
  Francis: No,
• 2:59
  Mark: I
• 2:59
  Francis: didn't mean, I meant like no wonder we are fat.
• 3:02
  Francis: I'm fat too.
• 3:03
  Francis: Uh, but I do eat more than 10 foods, although
• 3:06
  Mark: almost always.
• 3:08
  Mark: The other thing is that, that the average American eats three bottles of ketchup a year.
• 3:12
  Francis: Yeah.
• 3:12
  Francis: You know what,
• 3:13
  Mark: it seems like a lot of ketchup, doesn't it?
• 3:15
  Francis: Not to me.
• 3:15
  Francis: I eat five bottles of, I'm sure that I'm above the average on that.
• 3:19
  Francis: I remember I was, I was traveling in Portugal when I was a young man, and, uh, we'd been, I've traveling with my friend in Portugal, in Spain, my friend Kurt.
• 3:26
  Francis: Uh, and we've been, we've been gone for a couple of months and we found this, um.
• 3:31
  Francis: It, there's a big, there's a large Canadian presence in this town in Portugal called K Kai, which is right on the water.
• 3:37
  Francis: And, uh, no it wasn't in Kash Kai, it was in Lagos.
• 3:40
  Francis: Anyway, no one cares, of course, but
• 3:41
  Mark: matters that very important.
• 3:43
  Mark: Not in Kka, it was in Lagos.
• 3:44
  Mark: Okay.
• 3:45
  Mark: Everyone got that?
• 3:45
  Mark: Is that, are we clear?
• 3:47
  Francis: We
• 3:47
  Mark: were, that Francis was in Lagos.
• 3:49
  Francis: We were in Lagos.
• 3:50
  Francis: And um, uh, we found a Canadian bar.
• 3:54
  Mark: Mm-hmm.
• 3:54
  Francis: And the Canadian bar, uh, served hamburgers.
• 3:58
  Francis: And we're like, very cool.
• 4:00
  Francis: And so we'd order hamburgers and I use about a quarter bottle of ketchup per burger.
• 4:03
  Mark: Mm-hmm.
• 4:04
  Francis: And, uh, the.
• 4:06
  Francis: The
• 4:06
  Mark: quarter bottle of ketchup burger.
• 4:08
  Francis: I use a lot of You've seen meat burgers?
• 4:09
  Mark: Yeah, I have.
• 4:10
  Mark: It's a disgusting site to behold
• 4:13
  Francis: the, uh, the barmaid came over and said, uh, so we had to order more sauce American for you.
• 4:20
  Francis: Okay.
• 4:20
  Francis: Well, whatever charge extra
• 4:21
  Mark: sauce.
• 4:21
  Mark: American, what, what is it do you think about ketchup that we love so much?
• 4:25
  Francis: it's the, it's the, and it's gotta be Heinz.
• 4:28
  Francis: I'm sorry you don't, you don't hear me talk about in favor of big fast, unless you make it yourself.
• 4:31
  Francis: It's
• 4:31
  Mark: gotta be nice.
• 4:32
  Mark: Well, I recently read a study of a, of a taste test of all the ketchups, including the gourmet ketchups and the organic ketchups and the whole deal.
• 4:38
  Mark: in the category of non-organic Heinz was named the number one ketchup, and in the category of organic, Heinz Organic was named the number one, and it was just, and Heinz Organic only slightly edged regular Heinz for the best overall.
• 4:52
  Mark: I mean, they really have the formula there at Heinz.
• 4:55
  Francis: I, uh, well, you know what, it's for me, it's the, it's the, it's, it's got a lot of vinegar in it, so it's got that sour, it's got it's very sweet salty, it's very sourful ma whole shebang,
• 5:03
  Mark: sour.
• 5:04
  Mark: It's all there
• 5:05
  Francis: Hunts just doesn't cut it too sweet
• 5:06
  Mark: Hunts.
• 5:07
  Mark: I can't do hunts too sweet.
• 5:08
  Mark: I never, I I would rather eat something plain than have it with hunts.
• 5:11
  Francis: Okay.
• 5:12
  Francis: You ready for more fun facts from Gourmet Magazine as we
• 5:14
  Mark: we're done talking about ketchup?
• 5:15
  Francis: Yeah.
• 5:15
  Francis: Mm-hmm.
• 5:15
  Francis: Alright, uh, more fun facts.
• 5:18
  Francis: Uh,
• 5:18
  Mark: gourmet magazine's a monthly magazine, by the way.
• 5:20
  Mark: Not a weekly magazine, just in case you wonder,
• 5:21
  Francis: right?
• 5:22
  Francis: Um, it, they, they put down that people will eat.
• 5:25
  Francis: 28.4% more candy.
• 5:28
  Mark: Yeah.
• 5:28
  Mark: We've talked about this on the show a little bit before.
• 5:31
  Francis: They will eat 28, 4 0.4% more candy if it's labeled low fat.
• 5:35
  Mark: Okay.
• 5:36
  Mark: Let me help everybody with just some with labeling and how people are getting over on you.
• 5:41
  Mark: Okay.
• 5:41
  Mark: When they label stuff like this, if you eat pure sugar.
• 5:47
  Mark: It is low fat.
• 5:48
  Francis: Right, right,
• 5:49
  Mark: right.
• 5:49
  Mark: It is not good for you.
• 5:51
  Mark: You shouldn't eat more of something because, and because it says low fat, and you know what?
• 5:58
  Mark: Alaskan wild salmon has lots of fat and it's really, really good for you.
• 6:03
  Mark: So beware of the labels that people are put, people will put anything on a label to make you buy more of it, but even they, they will do anything, any little gimmick that anybody can bring to you to make you pay more for something or to make you buy more of it.
• 6:19
  Mark: Or eat more of it.
• 6:20
  Mark: They will do.
• 6:21
  Francis: You know, the other thing is if you are, if you're labeling something low fat, let's say they take 20% of the fat out of it.
• 6:26
  Mark: Mm-hmm.
• 6:27
  Francis: You eat 28% more of it, you're better off eating the full Fed
• 6:31
  Mark: version.
• 6:31
  Mark: You have failed.
• 6:32
  Mark: You have failed.
• 6:32
  Francis: We'll be back in just a moment.
• 6:34
  Francis: You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, Today we're talking with Jeff Roberts.
• 6:37
  Francis: He helped establish the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese at the University of Vermont.
• 6:41
  Francis: Uh, he's national director with Slow Food, USA and co-chaired Artisan Cheeses of America.
• 6:47
  Francis: Um, he lives in Vermont and he joins today to discuss his wonderful book, the Atlas of American Cheese.
• 6:52
  Mark: Jeff, welcome to the show.
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: Thank you Francis and Mark.
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: It's a pleasure to be here.
• 6:57
  Mark: So, Jeff, 20 years ago, the Atlas of American Cheese would've been slightly smaller than your Atlas today.
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: Uh, yeah, it would be more like a pamphlet.
• 7:07
  Mark: I mean, I remember back, uh, you know, working in other restaurants and, and when we first started our restaurant, I mean, if you had Mountain Shepherd on your, on your cheeseboard and Maytag Blue, you were just, uh, cutting edge, top of the top.
• 7:20
  Mark: You couldn't do any better.
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: Uh, that's probably very true, and if you had any goat cheese, people thought you were crazy.
• 7:26
  Francis: Well, and if you, if you were a cheese head and we were cheeseheads early on, uh, in so many ways, Jeff, but, but in the restaurant as well, um, we had mostly 20 years ago, uh, French and Italian cheeses on it.
• 7:39
  Francis: That's right.
• 7:39
  Francis: How many American producers do you list in the Atlas of American cheese?
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: Well, there are 345.
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: Full descriptions and profiles of producers out of Oh, approximately 400 that I identified.
• 7:56
  Francis: No, we're not talking.
• 7:57
  Francis: And that excludes, you know, craft dairies we're talking about.
• 8:00
  Francis: That's exactly
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: right.
• 8:00
  Francis: You know, artisanal cheese, producers, little guys making cheese on the farm kind of thing.
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: Well, there are a handful of larger companies.
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: And they're included because they, in fact do make, some cheese by hand.
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: Uh, Cabot's a very good example.
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: I think
• 8:16
  Mark: Cabot is a great example of that.
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: You know, here's a company that has been around since the 1920s, and while they moved into industrial or commodity production, they always made their traditional 38 pound wheels, the ones that you.
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: You might remember, you'd see in the, in the general stores sitting on the Cracker Barrel.
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: Uh, that was still made by hand.
• 8:40
  Mark: I don't actually remember that, Jeff, just so you know,
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: uh, well you have to come to New England.
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: We still have a handful of places like that, but that's, uh, that was something that they continued to do.
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: And then a couple of years ago, they established a relationship with Jasper Hill Farm here in Vermont.
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: To begin.
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: Uh, trying to do something just a little bit different using that same size wheel, but, uh, sourcing the milk from only one farm using a different blend of cultures.
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: Um,
• 9:13
  Mark: which is pretty amazing for that, that a, that a large, uh, I don't wanna say industrial corporation'cause'cause they're not that, but certainly they're, they're producing a, a ton of cheese, so it's pretty amazing that there, that there's even an interest in that for, for a company.
• 9:27
  Mark: The size of Cabot.
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: Well, I think a couple of things are apparent, and this is in a way, relates to some of the questions you were asking a moment ago.
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: The, the, the cheese landscape in America has changed dramatically.
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: And larger companies, not yet craft, but larger companies like Cabot are paying attention to what consumers are asking for.
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: And that, I think is what, uh, allows them to go into this, joint project with Jasper Hill to create a cheese, which won the best in show last year at the American Cheese Society and
• 10:03
  Mark: Cabot's making some pretty darn good cheeses.
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah.
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: And they're very, very good.
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: Producer of commodity chiefs.
• 10:10
  Mark: Mm-hmm.
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: In fact, there are, you know, there are a number of good commodity producers.
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: But it's a different way of approaching food and agriculture.
• 10:18
  Francis: Well, I just wanna point out that, and I like to give our audience credit whenever, uh, whenever we can look, we're here on the radio, you know, this is our avocation, you know, when our restaurant we're able to do this, you have this as a vocation as well.
• 10:31
  Francis: When it comes right down to it, what moves the market.
• 10:34
  Francis: We can't do this.
• 10:35
  Francis: These cheese producers can't do this.
• 10:37
  Francis: If you out there don't have great taste, and if you don't start saying, Hey, where does my cheese come from?
• 10:41
  Francis: What's this cheese like?
• 10:42
  Francis: I'm willing to look at flavors I haven't, tasted before and aromas I haven't tasted before, and looking for a new small cheeses.
• 10:48
  Francis: So, you know, Cabot is responding as Jeff said.
• 10:52
  Francis: To your increasingly good taste.
• 10:54
  Francis: And, and that's keeping farmers on the farm.
• 10:56
  Francis: That's, that's keeping artisanship alive in America and it's, uh, keeping me in my job.
• 11:00
  Francis: Thank you.
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: Could
• 11:02
  Francis: we
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: talk, I, I could not agree with you more.
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: That is the place of consumers when it comes to the future of agriculture and food in this country.
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: Most of us don't realize that every time we make a choice, it has an implication or a, a ripple effect way back down the line.
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: And so every time we buy cheese at a, from a local cheese seller and we're buying something from New Jersey, for example, that money stays in New Jersey.
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: And that to me is important.
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: It doesn't go to China, for example.
• 11:36
  Francis: Well, and it also, it stays supporting some, you know, small dairy operation that's making some artisanal cheeses.
• 11:43
  Francis: If, if we don't have people out there with good taste like you all in the listening audience, then you know, craft singles are fine for everybody and the small farmers isn't on the farm anymore.
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: That's right.
• 11:52
  Francis: You know, you had, you have 345 producers out of 400, uh, that you were able to identify in America, and that's just in America.
• 11:59
  Francis: Um, uh, who are making artisanal cheese like this 20 years ago, what do you think the number would be, would've been?
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: Well, I can tell you that in 2000.
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: Half of the 345 did not exist.
• 12:11
  Francis: That's amazing.
• 12:12
  Francis: And that speaks to what a heck of a growth that is.
• 12:15
  Francis: And, and it's just a, it's a real celebration.
• 12:18
  Francis: Uh, I remember another thing that when we changed that, that is still sort of the case.
• 12:22
  Francis: Um, when you buy American cheeses, they cost a little more.
• 12:25
  Francis: Actually with the Euro going up, they're sort of, they're sort of balancing out.
• 12:29
  Mark: And we're not talking about Land O'Lakes here.
• 12:31
  Francis: Yeah.
• 12:31
  Francis: Yeah.
• 12:31
  Francis: But, um, but these, these American cheeses from these small dairys, they cost a little bit more, but I think they're worth it.
• 12:36
  Francis: Do, do you think they're still costing a little bit more?
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: Uh, and it depends on where you are.
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: New York City, you can get 30 to$35 a pound.
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: I won't pay that in Vermont, and a lot of my fellow Vermonters won't pay it.
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: That's then what I encourage people to do.
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: Is, you don't have to buy a pound to enjoy it.
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: You can buy five ounces and have a great cheese on your table.
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: What I think is changing is that people realize that the issue isn't just price.
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: They can get great flavors by buying local cheese, but it also helps support broader social.
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: goals.
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: And when we are concerned about where does our food come from, and this is not a statement against, let's say the Europeans, a lot more people are asking, did this come from New Jersey or Vermont or Connecticut?
• 13:33
  Francis: You know that, that's a great issue.
• 13:34
  Francis: We're gonna talk about that.
• 13:35
  Francis: And specifically, I wanna talk about New Jersey cheese in just a moment.
• 13:38
  Francis: We're talking with Jeff Roberts.
• 13:39
  Francis: He's the author of the Atlas of American Artisan Cheese.
• 13:43
  Francis: Um, you in your wonderful book, your survey, American Cheeses overall, you, there are a lot of cheeses produced in in our own home state of New Jersey.
• 13:52
  Francis: It's sort of a unique case, isn't it, Jeff?
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: I think so.
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: I think it's a wonderful case.
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: Um, you have on the one hand some historic dairies like RAs, um, in Hoboken or.
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: Uh, Vito's New Deli that's also in Hoboken.
• 14:07
  Francis: They make fresh Mella
• 14:08
  Mark: two water.
• 14:08
  Mark: Yeah, I think, people don't look at Fioris or Vito's and necessarily think of them as a cheese producer.
• 14:14
  Mark: They think, it's kind of a deli.
• 14:15
  Mark: It's kind of a little shop.
• 14:16
  Mark: And when you look at a place like that, that's not necessarily your first inclination that they're producing cheese.
• 14:21
  Francis: Hey, I just wanna, I, I, I, I, this, I just wanna point out Fiore's is place I go all, all the time.
• 14:27
  Francis: I live in Jersey City, New Jersey.
• 14:28
  Francis: They're in Hoboken, New Jersey.
• 14:30
  Francis: Cash only, so don't bring your credit card.
• 14:32
  Francis: 'cause I ain't gonna fly owned by the same family for 60 years.
• 14:35
  Francis: The owners are back there making the ozella to order all the time.
• 14:39
  Francis: That's that, you know, and, and I think it's great and wonderful that they've made it into the American cheese atlas that you've written because we think of them as a local treasure, but I mean, they're, they're, you know, of a national scale of quality.
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: Absolutely.
• 16:19
  Francis: And, and, and you can walk in there any day of the week except for Sundays because they're closed on Sundays, of course.
• 16:24
  Francis: And you can get a sandwich made with this fresh ozal or you can get a piece of fresh ozal.
• 16:28
  Francis: Absolutely amazing.
• 16:29
  Francis: Hey, listen, we're gonna go and listen to the news, but when we come back, I wanna talk more about New Jersey and about America in general and the wonderful cheeses that you can find out there.
• 16:38
  Francis: And this book is the best resource I've.
• 16:40
  Francis: Ever seen for you, our listeners, to be able to find cheeses?
• 16:44
  Francis: You can find out more about it on our website.
• 16:45
  Francis: We'll be back in a moment talking with the author Jeff Roberts, Today we're talking with Jeff Roberts about his wonderful book.
• 16:52
  Francis: It's a tremendous resource.
• 16:53
  Francis: If you're interested in cheese at all, it's the Atlas of American Artisan Cheese.
• 16:57
  Francis: You can find out about it on our website, restaurant guys radio.com.
• 17:01
  Mark: So Jeff, we were talking just a moment ago about New Jersey, uh, dairies talk and, and we talked about places that we didn't think are, are necessary traditional dairies like fioris and vetoes.
• 17:11
  Mark: But tell us about some of the other dairies in New Jersey that, that we have available to us.
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: Well, you have two, in my opinion, two of the most, um, unique and important producers for very different reasons.
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: Uh, one is Bob Link, um, uh, Jonathan, uh, white and, and his wife Nina.
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: Who were working with rare breeds of cows, which,
• 17:34
  Mark: and this is relatively new dairy, right?
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: Uh, yes.
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: Uh, Jonathan and Nina used to have a their dairy was called the Peekskill, dairy and egg farm up, uh, along the Hudson Valley,
• 17:45
  Mark: right?
• 17:45
  Mark: Egg Farm Dairy.
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: then they moved to Jersey and they reopened, uh, four or five years ago.
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: Uh, his approach to cheese making.
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: I like to think of Jonathan as one of these wonderfully creative iconoclasts.
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: He wants to find something unique.
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: They've done this in part because of the animals that they're raising, and then second, they've built a cave where they're able to age their products in a way that is unique to the place.
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: You're not gonna duplicate this around the next hill or over around the next corner.
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: That's important.
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: And the other guys, um, are the folks over at Valley Shepherd.
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: And here's one of our older sheep dairies.
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: There are not very many sheep dairies in the United States.
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: And what these folks have done, um, Aaron and Deborah, uh, was al is, uh, create again, another very unique set of cheeses, um, all built around sheep's milk.
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: Um, I can't find them in Vermont.
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: They're cheese that if I could, I'd be buying all the time.
• 18:56
  Mark: Mm-hmm.
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: Very important.
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: And they've also, in a sense, created a, uh, a business in a place where you don't necessarily think about cow dairies, let alone a sheep dairy.
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: So they're, I think they're also important.
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: I'd like to say one more thing about the place of Fioris and Vito.
• 19:15
  Francis: Yeah.
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: Um, what I discovered.
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: Uh, as I started doing the research for the book is that there are delicatessens, like fioris, so Fioris goes back a long way,
• 19:28
  Mark: 1913.
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: And they're, I'd like to say something more about Vito and, uh, fre because they represent, uh, as you were saying a a little bit earlier, they represent something about artisan cheese, which most of us don't pay any attention to.
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: If you look at the cover of the Atlas, um, this wonderful photograph.
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: Beautiful goat cheese, that's what we have today is our image of handmade cheese.
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: But Italian Americans, Portuguese Americans, Hispanic Americans, not only brought cheese traditions with them.
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: But they're still doing this.
• 20:03
  Mark: Mm-hmm.
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: They're still making that mozzarella by hand in the back room.
• 20:08
  Mark: at Catherine Lombardi restaurant, we make your fresh mozzarella.
• 20:11
  Mark: When you order it at that time, it comes out a little bit warm and still kind of amorphous.
• 20:16
  Mark: And being able to do that, I think is extraordinary.
• 20:19
  Mark: when you get to taste something like that, there's nothing like it.
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: And especially as you just described it, where it has not been refrigerated at all.
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: Because just a little bit of cold changes the texture of that cheese.
• 20:33
  Mark: Mm-hmm.
• 20:34
  Francis: Well, now let's talk about, now do you, do you, is fioris in your book because it's the best of category or it's an example of a lot of places?
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: Um, some of each
• 20:45
  Francis: uhhuh, uh,
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: they, uh, I'll be honest with you, if you, the, the connection, I did not remember fioris until I was, uh, talking with a woman.
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: Named Lourdes Fre Smith, who is the granddaughter of the, of the, uh, Fiore, who had the business in the 1950s.
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: She lives outside of Boston and recently started making Ella just the way her grandfather did.
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: And her mother is her quality control expert.
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: That's great.
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: And she started telling me about the deli.
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: And I said, well, well, I know this delicatessen, this is Frank Sinatra's delicatessen.
• 21:33
  Francis: Mm-hmm.
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: That's exactly right.
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: That's absolutely right.
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: So as I started to peel this back a little bit more, I realized I could have done a book just on Italian, Portuguese and Hispanic delis where they're still making cheese by hand.
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: You
• 21:47
  Francis: know, I'll tell you, I'll tell you something that happened to me when I walk into Fioris, and I think it relates to, to the rest of your book and, and a lot of what we're talking about in a sense of community.
• 21:55
  Francis: I live up in Jersey City, but I've known about Fre since, oh, I don't know.
• 21:58
  Francis: I was 22.
• 21:59
  Francis: 'cause I, I'm from North Jersey in general, but I wasn't as close.
• 22:02
  Francis: so now that I live near there, I go every, you know, I'd say once or twice a month, I'm in Fres.
• 22:07
  Francis: I'm buying, I'm buying Del.
• 22:09
  Francis: You know, and it's not cheap.
• 22:10
  Francis: Okay.
• 22:10
  Francis: No.
• 22:10
  Francis: Um, but you have to get it fresh.
• 22:12
  Francis: 'cause zadel and, and if you haven't had fresh zadel and you're listening out there, you haven't had zadel.
• 22:17
  Francis: Because once you refrigerated, as you said, Jeff, the curd sees up and it's a different texture.
• 22:22
  Francis: it's that plasticy thing that we get in the supermarket.
• 22:25
  Francis: It's not the same as, as what you get fresh.
• 22:28
  Francis: was in Furies and I was getting my fresh zadel and if you could store it overnight, the way I started at home is I leave it out on the counter in some salt water and it's fine for a couple of days the nice thing about this book, you have pictures of these folks with their animals on their farms.
• 22:42
  Francis: Uh, it's very different than an industrial cheese production.
• 22:45
  Francis: These people just seem nice.
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: Well, um, thank you.
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: I wrote this book for a number of reasons.
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: The first one of which is that I'm very selfish about where my food comes from.
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: And I know a lot of these cheese makers I've gotten to know a lot more over the last year as I worked on this book.
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: They're among the most amazing group of people anywhere in the country.
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: And you know, in a time when there's so much that we are concerned about, uh, locally, nationally, internationally, what this book tells me is that there's a lot of good reason to be optimistic about good people.
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: And it's as much a celebration of the people as it is about taste, about commitment to hard work, about very basic, what I would say, very basic American values.
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: And it's not what I set out to do.
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: There's another book I have in mind if my wife will let me ride it.
• 23:47
  Mark: That's funny.
• 23:47
  Mark: I have another restaurant in mind.
• 23:49
  Mark: If my
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: wife will let me over, your wife will let you do it.
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: And, um.
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: So I didn't do a lot of interpretation and, and analysis.
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: I wanted to use the book, uh, to tell stories.
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: And someone on the West Coast who's just done a review said what she came away with was, this is a cultural and historical snapshot of a piece of American agriculture.
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: That gives her great reason to be optimistic.
• 24:18
  Francis: Wow.
• 24:18
  Francis: I
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: couldn't have said it any better than that.
• 24:20
  Wow.
• 24:20
  Francis: That's
• 24:20
  Mark: great.
• 24:21
  Francis: Well, and I wanna point out, because, you know, I'd like people to buy your book as well because I think, you know, it's, it's all to all of our benefit.
• 24:28
  Francis: When people understand more about where their food comes from, it's a, it's a wonderful and pretty book, but it's also extremely useful
• 24:35
  Mark: when you talk about a resource you, you give.
• 24:37
  Mark: The resources here, the websites are here.
• 24:40
  Mark: Whether they have a place you can visit.
• 24:42
  Mark: I mean, it's, it's almost a, a travel guide for the, for the cheese dairies of the country.
• 24:46
  Francis: And you read about these all the time in these specialty magazines, but then you don't know how to get your hands on it.
• 24:51
  Francis: Mm-hmm.
• 24:51
  Francis: And very often, you know, if you know how to go to the source, you can figure out how to get the cheese.
• 24:56
  Francis: When, you know, when we come back, I want to, I wanna leave this as a cliffhanger.
• 24:59
  Francis: We wanna come back after a break and I want you to, I, I wanna share some stories.
• 25:04
  Francis: A about a woman named Douglas mm-hmm.
• 25:06
  Francis: And her herd of long-eared Nubian goats.
• 25:09
  Francis: Mm-hmm.
• 25:10
  Francis: We'll be back in just a moment.
• 25:10
  Francis: You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, I left as a teaser before the break.
• 25:14
  Francis: Jeff, a story about a woman named Douglas and her herd of long-eared Nubian goats.
• 25:19
  Francis: You wanna tell us about Douglas Newbold?
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: Yes, I am sorry that I didn't have a chance to meet her when I lived in Philadelphia.
• 25:27
  Francis: Mm-hmm.
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: Um, she is among the earliest producers of goat cheese in this country.
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: Before 1970.
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: Most people wouldn't know a Chev if they tripped over it.
• 25:40
  Francis: Right.
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: And the chefs that any of us knew were all coming from, principally from France.
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: her cheese was on.
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: The, restaurant, menu at the White Dog Cafe for years.
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: And when I worked at the University of Pennsylvania, I know I ate this cheese many times.
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: It wasn't until I tracked her down last year and she said, well, I'm out of business.
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: Uh, but let me tell you a little bit about my history.
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: And I thought, this is really amazing.
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: She introduced a group of Philadelphians who ate the white dog to Chev.
• 26:17
  Mark: Yeah.
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: Uh, she also got other people who knew about her success to consider making cheese, and there are the handful of these people in the beginning of the 1970s.
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: There are a couple people on the East Coast.
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: There are a couple people on the West coast who, when it comes to goat cheese, in my opinion, really set a standard and a, and a, uh, and created, the, the opportunities for other.
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: perspective cheese makers to take this on.
• 26:45
  Mark: We had the good, it's
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: wonderful.
• 26:46
  Mark: We had the great good fortune to have, uh, her goat cheese on our menu just one time.
• 26:50
  Mark: We were, we were able to convince her to, to send us some goat cheese.
• 26:53
  Francis: I'll tell you the funny story.
• 26:54
  Francis: I got in touch with Douglas Newbold when I had had her cheese, and it was one of the best goat cheeses in America.
• 26:59
  Francis: Now, she was established in 1972, and I got in touch with Douglas New bold, I'm gonna say in 96, right?
• 27:05
  Francis: And we five, right?
• 27:08
  Francis: I spoke to her on the phone and she was sort of surprised to hear from me.
• 27:12
  Francis: And, uh, I said, I'd like to buy some of your, some of your goat cheese.
• 27:14
  Francis: And she said, well, I, uh, I don't have any, everything I have is spoken for by restaurants.
• 27:20
  Francis: Um, but you know, you, you, it's been very nice talking to you and if I get any more goats, I'll give you a call.
• 27:26
  Francis: Two and a half years later, I get a call.
• 27:29
  Francis: Douglas Newbold is on the phone and I pick up the phone and she said.
• 27:33
  Francis: I, I have some more goats online.
• 27:35
  Francis: Would you like some cheese?
• 27:36
  Francis: And so for a while we were able to have this amazing cheese, but we got into a wonderful conversation with her and she said, listen, I love my goats.
• 27:43
  Francis: And, um, the cheese is the way that they can pay their way.
• 27:47
  Francis: And it's, it was a fresh, clean, simple cheese.
• 27:50
  Francis: That cheese is the fastest and cleanest cheese that I could get to market.
• 27:53
  Francis: But this comes from a love of the animals.
• 27:55
  Francis: Um, is that, is that a common thread that runs at least to a certain extent through all these producers?
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah.
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: Um.
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: I, as you were talking, as you were getting towards the end of what you were just saying, I was thinking of a number of people that I've met.
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: Uh, one of them that comes to mind is a dairy, um, in Idaho called Rolling Stone.
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: Chev husband and wife team.
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: She makes the cheese and Chuck is the herdsman and I referred to him in the book.
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: As the goat whisperer because, everyone says that his goats do things that none, nobody else can do.
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: And there's this relationship that he has when I've ever asked him about other kinds of goats, he says, oh no.
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: All I want are san and goats.
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: That's it, period.
• 28:45
  Francis: What, what does goats do?
• 28:46
  Francis: Do they type or play the piano?
• 28:48
  Francis: What, what, what exactly does he get
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: outta them?
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: In Idaho, I'm not sure, but they're fascinating animals.
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: they're very intelligent.
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: they eat very differently than a cow.
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: Uh, and when you look at the source of goat cheeses that are being made today, the array of cheese is, pretty extraordinary.
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: We have learned to make absolutely stunning cheese.
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: That, in my opinion, can stand up to anything being produced in Europe.
• 29:19
  Mark: Well, there's no, there's no doubt
• 29:20
  Francis: about that.
• 29:20
  Francis: And, and that's world opinion.
• 29:21
  Francis: AG agrees of course on that, on that account.
• 29:24
  Francis: So, uh, the final chapter of the Douglas Newbold in her, her herd of long-eared Nubian goats that she's had since she was a teenager.
• 29:30
  Francis: Does she still have the goats?
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: But she's not producing cheese.
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: she said that it just got to be too much.
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: and that, Occasionally she'll still supply some to the white dog, but she, I, I debated over whether to keep her in the book because she's not actively in production.
• 29:48
  Francis: No, you had
• 29:48
  Mark: to.
• 29:48
  Mark: Yeah.
• 29:49
  Francis: She
• 29:49
  Mark: was an important part of the, of the whole
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: Exactly.
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: She's
• 29:51
  Mark: culture
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: in this country.
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: So that's the reason why she's there.
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 29:53
  Mark: Um.
• 29:54
  Francis: One other thing that I wanna point out is with these artisanal cheeses, uh, and I you, you can get some of the Green market, union Square has two different producers that show their, show their stuff there all the time.
• 30:03
  Francis: Mm-hmm.
• 30:04
  Francis: Um, they change with the seasons as depending on what the goats eat or the cows eat or, or whatever it is.
• 30:09
  Francis: Eat.
• 30:09
  Francis: Yeah.
• 30:09
  Mark: And the cheeses taste differently.
• 30:11
  Francis: We have to leave it there.
• 30:12
  Francis: We'll come.
• 30:12
  Francis: We'll, we'll have you back again Jeff, it's been a, it's been a pleasure and your book's amazing.
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: Thank you very much.
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: It's been a real enjoyable conversation with both of you.
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: I look forward to seeing you in Jersey.
• 30:21
  Francis: Alright, come and see us.
• 30:22
  Francis: We're here
• 30:35
  Mark: You know, one of the things we were talking about with Jeff was the evolution of cheese in this country and how it's, it's kind of changed.
• 30:41
  Mark: I, I remember a, a ski trip, taking a ski trip with my friends up to Vermont.
• 30:46
  Mark: Uh, it's gotta be 92, 93, right when we first opened.
• 30:49
  Mark: And going to one of the, the Vermont cheese shops.
• 30:52
  Mark: And I remember I, I walked in and I was really into cheese and the guy kind of picked up on the fact that I was really into cheese and I was tasting a bunch of the graft and cheddars.
• 31:00
  Speaker: Mm-hmm.
• 31:01
  Mark: And I, I, I don't know if you remember,'cause I actually brought some of these back to the restaurant.
• 31:06
  Mark: I
• 31:06
  Speaker: remember,
• 31:07
  Mark: and I'm tasting some of the graft and Cheddars and I, they had this beautiful three year age cheddar and it was delicious.
• 31:13
  Mark: And, and it had this pungency to it and the sharpness to it.
• 31:16
  Mark: And I, and I was intrigued by it.
• 31:18
  Mark: He said, you know, I have this four year cheddar.
• 31:20
  Mark: And I said, oh, okay, great.
• 31:21
  Mark: And I, I was even more intrigued by the four year cheddar.
• 31:25
  Mark: Then he said, well, you know, we don't give this to a lot of people, but I have some five year grafton cheddar here under the counter.
• 31:31
  Francis: I remember that
• 31:32
  Mark: chase, and I remember that ch, I was like, wow.
• 31:35
  Mark: I mean, it filled the room with aroma and it filled my mouth with just this unbelievable bursting flavor.
• 31:43
  Mark: It was, I mean, it was very pungent and very sharp.
• 31:45
  Mark: Too much for
• 31:45
  Francis: me.
• 31:45
  Mark: And, and uh, just it was one of those cheeses that I want to eat half an ounce of.
• 31:50
  Francis: Really rarely have I thought, I'm not man enough to eat this cheese.
• 31:54
  Francis: But the graft in five year cheddar was
• 31:56
  Mark: brought it back to the restaurant and we had to keep it separate from the other cheeses because it wouldn't play nice with the other cheeses.
• 32:03
  Mark: Everything tasted like graft in 5-year-old cheddar after its after its acquaintance with the Grafton cheddar.
• 32:09
  Francis: I remember we sent a little bit of that home with one of our regular customers.
• 32:12
  Francis: And, and he brought it back because his wife wouldn't let him keep it in the refrigerator.
• 32:16
  Mark: Yeah.
• 32:17
  Mark: So every once in a while you'll get a cheese on the cheese, you know, on our cheese board or in the restaurant.
• 32:22
  Mark: That just is so powerful that it, it almost overtakes the other cheeses that you have around it.
• 32:28
  Mark: Make sure you eat that one last.
• 32:30
  Francis: Yeah.
• 32:31
  Mark: Okay.
• 32:31
  Mark: That's really important.
• 32:32
  Francis: And if, if you leave that out on the counter, don't leave it on the counter during dinner, move it away or cover with glass.
• 32:37
  Mark: I, I kind of call it the Swiss cheese effect.
• 32:39
  Mark: If you leave open Swiss cheese as a little drawer in your refrigerator, taste like ham, taste like Swiss cheese or taste like
• 32:46
  Francis: that's words to live on.
• 32:49
  Mark: And I do
• 32:50
  Francis: hope you've enjoyed the, with the re guys, I'm, and I'm
• 32:53
  Mark: Mark
• 32:53
  Francis: Pascal, the re.