It was the eve of my first experience at the biennial Slow Food Cheese Festival, and already I felt as though I couldn\u2019t bring myself to eat another bite. I\u2019d been cooped up for hours tasting cheese as an apprentice at the Giolito Formaggi shop in Bra, Italy, trying to finalize the selection that owner Fiorenzo Giolito and I would present at the festival. We\u2019d nearly filled our case with cheeses from Italy\u2019s northwestern Piedmont region and needed to add just one more.<\/p>\n
Fiorenzo was adamant that the choice be local and rousing, especially given Bra\u2019s historical reputation as a trading and aging hub. We\u2019d sampled nearly every cheese in the shop, and I was sleepy from too much red wine.<\/p>\n
\u201cMarset e abbiamo finito!<\/em>\u201d I declared. \u201cMarset and we\u2019re done!\u201d Fiorenzo sat silently for a moment, then raised his glass. We added a stack of Marset, the refermented version of the town\u2019s name- sake Bra Duro cheese, known for its spicy, nose-burning effects. This was sure to surprise the 150,000-plus participants who would flood the cobblestone streets in the morning.<\/p>\n As I climbed the stairs to my room above the shop, I felt sadness underpinning my excitement. The Cheese festival marked the culmination of my experience in Bra. I\u2019d never imagined I\u2019d live above an Italian cheese shop, much less be mentored by its owner. Now, it felt impossible to leave.<\/p>\n I\u2019d discovered Giolito Formaggi a year earlier. Having recently quit a corporate job in Boston, I was in Italy to pursue a master\u2019s degree in food studies. A cheerful cheese shop owner eager to hand out samples helped grease the wheels of my transition and made me more comfortable with the fact that I had no idea what came next.<\/p>\n I fell hard for rounds wrapped in hay, aged in wine must, or laden with untamed coats of mold that made me sneeze and shiver. I realized that expensive cheese wasn\u2019t only produced or consumed by the elite. These cheesemakers had roots so deep in traditional techniques they couldn\u2019t imagine a life without morning milkings. Their products were worth every centesimo<\/em>.<\/p>\n I found myself happier in this routine than at any previous job. But I couldn\u2019t imagine that the welcome mat of a shop that closed most days from noon to 4 p.m. was the first step in my new career path. Would I only be able to indulge in this lifestyle of craft and conviviality in Italy?<\/p>\n I was still uncertain about my future when the festival began the next morning. Masses of industry professionals from around the globe moved through the streets, tasting cheeses from countries they\u2019d never visited and breeds they\u2019d only heard of. For the first hour or so, I barely spoke as I wove my way through tents teeming with unusual finds: Kenyan Pokot ash yogurt; Branza de Burduf cheese wrapped in fir tree bark from Transylvania; and Seirass, a velvety mixed-milk Piemontese ricotta. I sipped wine and listened to the steady satisfied moan that emanated throughout the town as mouths met delights.<\/p>\n These were people doing what they loved, finding a huge appetite for their products, and literally preserving their culture in the process. Surrounded by farmers, cheesemakers, sellers, distributors, researchers, activists, and entrepreneurs, I was acutely aware that the world of cheese was alive, and suddenly, I was sure I wanted a piece of it.<\/p>\n That evening, as I walked home, I thought about whom I had become over the past year. Just as I was falling asleep, it finally came to me: \u201chard, slightly nutty, and primed to age a bit longer, perhaps right here in Bra.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A young cheese lover confronts fear and joy while confronting the possibility of a career in cheese at the Slow Food Cheese Festival<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":9145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[590],"tags":[],"coauthors":[611,596],"class_list":["post-9144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ruminations"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n