Don’t Discriminate Cheese!
We had 200 reservations at Picholine and I had set up my cheese cart with 53 Artisanal Premium Cheeses from North America and Western Europe. The atmosphere was tense, we had overbooked the restaurant with the crowd that swamps Manhattan every Friday and Saturday.
It was not long until the first seating was through with the main course and my turn to cheese everyone out had begun. Unfortunately it is common on Friday and Saturday to discriminate a product because of the region where it was made. I started to give guests from France cheese from Virginia, and guests from New Jersey cheese from Wisconsin, and the hardest venture of all to expose guests from the South to cheeses from Vermont.
I am an independent voter myself and it was always infuriated me as a cheese monger to hear clients discriminate the wonderful cheese from Vermont because they felt it came from a liberal state and then have a New Yorker discriminate against cheese from Texas and Europeans that visit New York and drink French wine and eat European Cheeses.
My friends, we should all be open with our palate to try Artisanal products regardless of where they were produced, the key is to experiment with it and then you have a right to draw a final conclusion.
-Gabriel Edelman
Culinary Advisor
