We met under the JMZ in Bushwick, Brooklyn at 4pm. The cheesemakers had to deliver their cheeses on time to the restaurant, otherwise, our night wouldn’t go according to plan. I had coordinated the evening’s festivities to begin at 7. Together, with a word of mouth crowd of one hundred food lovers and food industry professionals, we would break bread and share our dairy creations, pairing them with Brooklyn microbrews, urban rooftop honeys, Moroccan preserves, and fruit jams shipped in from Vermont, many of these cheeses hadn’t been shared before. Some came from urban home cheesemakers who had been practicing the craft for years. Others came from newly formed rural cheese making enterprises; makers who had a hunger to engage with the natural cheese loving community. There were a total of eight cheeses to be featured.
I am not the first person to utter the word Speakcheesy, but my goal is to give it context. Why must we speak in hushed voices about an event that brings together urban and rural cheesemakers? Despite the jovial, festive intentions of a thoughtful engagement such as this, the sharing a variety of unregulated, non-commercial cheese, for a suggested donation of $20 entry, is seen as a violation of health code. According to the Health Department, homemade cheese is a direct threat to the lives of those who partake.
“It is symbolic of a food anarchy where a cheese loving crowd takes their lives into their own hands.”
On the rare chance that a person would get sick, how would the law know who to blame? And so our evening takes on the air of revolution. It is symbolic of a food anarchy where a cheese loving crowd takes their lives into their own hands. It’s a risk I’ve been willing to take.
I arrive at the restaurant to meet our cohort of volunteers. We organize the kitchen as a cheese plating station. Cheese makers arrive with boxes of their hand crafted wares, and we organize the plate of cheese clockwise, starting at the 12 hand, from lightest to boldest flavors of cheese. Our small batch food and drink collaborators set up their tasting stations, lining the walls of the restaurant. Everyone is staying to drink, eat, and meet potential collaborators. We work quickly and with purpose, and rightly so; by 7:00pm there is a crowd forming at the door, despite the frigid November air. The live jazz pianist plugs in. And so it begins, four hours of orchestrated satiating cheese gluttony. I am tied to its rhythm and its ebbs and flows, and I can’t help but release a sigh of relief when we’ve reached the last hour. Our event has maintained its status as underground, grassroots, and authentic. We have gone undiscovered one more time by an overtly commercialized landscape. We’ve been able to share one more taste of a fresh, small batch cheese reality. Spread the curd, my people, and respect the cheesemaker.
PHOTO BY FRAN SANHUEZA
featured photo credit: photo by Fran Sanhueza