Cheese Conference: fromager certification
Aug. 9th, 2006 06:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gordonzolaMy first panel was "Fromager* Certification: Update and Next Steps". This was for the hardcore conference-goer, in fact two of my three cheese mentors were in attendance. It’s long been a peeve of mine that there are no professional standards in this business. People can get a job or start a store/restaurant and call themselves whatever they want. I did it too, of course, calling myself a "cheese monger" after I felt I had earned the title. Others may call themselves affineurs, fromager, maitre fromager, whatever sounds fancy but none of it means anything at this point.
On the panel was someone fairly famous for calling himself a maitre fromager. I was very impressed that he had the modesty and good graces to say he wasn’t sure he could pass the test they were proposing for certification. The panel, who’ve been working on this since the last conference, envisioned a three-tiered certification system: Cheese Specialist, Fromager, and Maitre Fromager. There would be a pre-qualifying exam, essay questions, and, for the top certification, an expectation of mastery of fairly obscure cheese knowledge. This was not meant to be a full proposal, just an update with a 5 year time frame for implementation.
I was itching to talk as soon as I saw the outline. The term Fromager was touted as the cheese equivalent of sommelier, something people are used to in fancy restaurants. As long time readers know, I have an aversion to the use of French names for things done in the USA. Not because the French hate our freedom, but because it continues to unnecessarily mystify food.
Take "terroir". It basically means food that has a sense of the place it is made/grown. It tops my list of hated terms because many folks want to import it and use it to market relatively new cheeses. In fact, "terroir’ was the theme for the first ACS conference I attended (in, of all places, Rodent Park, California) . The thing is though, that in France, they are talking about food that grew up together over centuries of relative geographical isolation. There has been cheese, beer, and wine made in, for example, Northern California since the land was stolen from the Indians and Mexicans. While much of it is great, its influence came from elsewhere and, with very few exceptions, it is not geographically original. A given cheese may be quite distinct in flavor, but that has a lot more to do with the skill of the cheese maker than the flora, fauna, and geography of the region.
It’s the equivalent of people who talk about their "old friends". Whether they are referring to people from grade school or people from last year tells you something about the person. The stupid thing is that there are lots of great American cheeses being made. To pretend that we have the history of the French or the Italians, as a cheesemaking nation, is dishonest and makes people rightfully suspect other claims made about taste and quality.
I got to speak towards the end of the Q&A and I praised them on the work they had done over the last year because they really did get a lot of the needs outlined and organized. I think actual certification will encourage people to learn more, and a more educated body of cheese folks will only help the cheese makers. I like the idea having a body of peers evaluate my professional level, depending on what they are evaluating of course. I think it’s possible that professional certification could lead to better pay for some cheese sellers, since watching the way that buyers turn over at every store but ours, the Cheese Board and the Pasta Shop is kind of disheartening.
It’s always more fun to complain so I quickly got to the heart of the matter. If people are serious about supporting local cheesemakers, and comparing North American cheese to European cheese, the title of achievement has to be an English one for use in the US. While I would prefer "Cheese Monger" with degrees of competence, I understand that distributors and some others don’t really fall into that category. But "Fromager" encourages all the pretension that many of us are trying to kill off. It’s just cheese, dude. When I said I would be embarrassed to use that title in our store, other cheese mongers in attendance applauded.
The other major problem with the proposed certification was that there was no requirement for experience. I don’t really see any reason to do a certification unless it’s limited to professionals. I am told that one can get a sommelier certificate by passing a class, and I guess I’d be ok with it on the "Specialist" level as a way for people to get cheese jobs, but it seems like a watering-down of the certification before we’ve even begun. I did say that if the intent was job creation, then they better provide an oral and/or Spanish language option because there are certainly people who could pass the Specialist part of the exam who may not be able to write essays in well-written English.
Hopefully as an oversight, not foreshadowing, the one glaring topic left of any part of the certification was demonstrating safe food handling skills. Heh. Uncomfortable giggle. If you can’t wash your hands, you can’t sell the cheese. It was wonderful recently when a new hire, in his self-evaluation, said that one of the biggest differences between his old store and working with us is how much we wash our hands and how much we clean the counters.
Of course, there is some danger that the certification process is simply a way for people to make money off of the booming cheese industry. The final steps were not outlined, but as much as parts of the American Cheese Society annoy me, they are the most impartial body to oversee this type of professionalization. Though maybe not since, looking at the list of BOD members I see I have professional relationships with 9 out of 16 of them. It’s not like they’d wanna tell me I failed the test. However, a private organization won’t survive long if people don’t pass so there would be a built-in incentive to make the test easier. Flunking people doesn’t exactly lead to good word of mouth.
I think my critiques were on the mark because a lot of other folks came up to me after the panel and said they appreciated my little speech. While the women tended to come up to me at the "networking breaks" all the men waited until we were in the bathroom together. I have never been patted on the back so many times over the course of two days while standing at urinals. Still, as cheese conference bathroom stories go, nothing will top 2001 in Louisville when a certain cheesemonger (not me) waved his penis at a delegation of Italians, saying, "I got your provolone right here!"
*For pronunciation, think of Bob and Doug Mackenzie, "Hey what smells?"
"I think it’s the fromage, eh?"
On the panel was someone fairly famous for calling himself a maitre fromager. I was very impressed that he had the modesty and good graces to say he wasn’t sure he could pass the test they were proposing for certification. The panel, who’ve been working on this since the last conference, envisioned a three-tiered certification system: Cheese Specialist, Fromager, and Maitre Fromager. There would be a pre-qualifying exam, essay questions, and, for the top certification, an expectation of mastery of fairly obscure cheese knowledge. This was not meant to be a full proposal, just an update with a 5 year time frame for implementation.
I was itching to talk as soon as I saw the outline. The term Fromager was touted as the cheese equivalent of sommelier, something people are used to in fancy restaurants. As long time readers know, I have an aversion to the use of French names for things done in the USA. Not because the French hate our freedom, but because it continues to unnecessarily mystify food.
Take "terroir". It basically means food that has a sense of the place it is made/grown. It tops my list of hated terms because many folks want to import it and use it to market relatively new cheeses. In fact, "terroir’ was the theme for the first ACS conference I attended (in, of all places, Rodent Park, California) . The thing is though, that in France, they are talking about food that grew up together over centuries of relative geographical isolation. There has been cheese, beer, and wine made in, for example, Northern California since the land was stolen from the Indians and Mexicans. While much of it is great, its influence came from elsewhere and, with very few exceptions, it is not geographically original. A given cheese may be quite distinct in flavor, but that has a lot more to do with the skill of the cheese maker than the flora, fauna, and geography of the region.
It’s the equivalent of people who talk about their "old friends". Whether they are referring to people from grade school or people from last year tells you something about the person. The stupid thing is that there are lots of great American cheeses being made. To pretend that we have the history of the French or the Italians, as a cheesemaking nation, is dishonest and makes people rightfully suspect other claims made about taste and quality.
I got to speak towards the end of the Q&A and I praised them on the work they had done over the last year because they really did get a lot of the needs outlined and organized. I think actual certification will encourage people to learn more, and a more educated body of cheese folks will only help the cheese makers. I like the idea having a body of peers evaluate my professional level, depending on what they are evaluating of course. I think it’s possible that professional certification could lead to better pay for some cheese sellers, since watching the way that buyers turn over at every store but ours, the Cheese Board and the Pasta Shop is kind of disheartening.
It’s always more fun to complain so I quickly got to the heart of the matter. If people are serious about supporting local cheesemakers, and comparing North American cheese to European cheese, the title of achievement has to be an English one for use in the US. While I would prefer "Cheese Monger" with degrees of competence, I understand that distributors and some others don’t really fall into that category. But "Fromager" encourages all the pretension that many of us are trying to kill off. It’s just cheese, dude. When I said I would be embarrassed to use that title in our store, other cheese mongers in attendance applauded.
The other major problem with the proposed certification was that there was no requirement for experience. I don’t really see any reason to do a certification unless it’s limited to professionals. I am told that one can get a sommelier certificate by passing a class, and I guess I’d be ok with it on the "Specialist" level as a way for people to get cheese jobs, but it seems like a watering-down of the certification before we’ve even begun. I did say that if the intent was job creation, then they better provide an oral and/or Spanish language option because there are certainly people who could pass the Specialist part of the exam who may not be able to write essays in well-written English.
Hopefully as an oversight, not foreshadowing, the one glaring topic left of any part of the certification was demonstrating safe food handling skills. Heh. Uncomfortable giggle. If you can’t wash your hands, you can’t sell the cheese. It was wonderful recently when a new hire, in his self-evaluation, said that one of the biggest differences between his old store and working with us is how much we wash our hands and how much we clean the counters.
Of course, there is some danger that the certification process is simply a way for people to make money off of the booming cheese industry. The final steps were not outlined, but as much as parts of the American Cheese Society annoy me, they are the most impartial body to oversee this type of professionalization. Though maybe not since, looking at the list of BOD members I see I have professional relationships with 9 out of 16 of them. It’s not like they’d wanna tell me I failed the test. However, a private organization won’t survive long if people don’t pass so there would be a built-in incentive to make the test easier. Flunking people doesn’t exactly lead to good word of mouth.
I think my critiques were on the mark because a lot of other folks came up to me after the panel and said they appreciated my little speech. While the women tended to come up to me at the "networking breaks" all the men waited until we were in the bathroom together. I have never been patted on the back so many times over the course of two days while standing at urinals. Still, as cheese conference bathroom stories go, nothing will top 2001 in Louisville when a certain cheesemonger (not me) waved his penis at a delegation of Italians, saying, "I got your provolone right here!"
*For pronunciation, think of Bob and Doug Mackenzie, "Hey what smells?"
"I think it’s the fromage, eh?"
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 10:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 10:01 pm (UTC)economists and chabicheu du poitou lovers want to know
Date: 2006-08-09 02:37 pm (UTC)Re: economists and chabicheu du poitou lovers want to know
Date: 2006-08-09 10:03 pm (UTC)But I may not be understanding what you mean. Certainly in the sense that an achievement title is useless unless it draws a line between included and excluded on some level. Cost prohibitive is certainly a worry.
Re: economists and chabicheu du poitou lovers want to know
Date: 2006-08-09 10:38 pm (UTC)I meant more in the sense of established industry players using licensing (or even worse, federal regulation) to lock out newcomers. Examples include the lumber industry (which used Congress to keep plastic studs and beams from becoming an option in the U.S.) or the AMA (which has had it in for chiropractors for years).
Re: economists and chabicheu du poitou lovers want to know
Date: 2006-08-09 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 03:31 pm (UTC)of course, "fromager" in french could also be taken (inaccurately) to mean "to cheese" which may be my new favorite verb.
cheeser: one who cheeses, etc.
Date: 2006-08-09 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-11 04:41 am (UTC)The sommelier comparison doesn't work.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-11 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-11 03:11 pm (UTC)And apparently fromager is a legit French word. Oh well.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-11 03:17 pm (UTC)i cheese, you cheese, we all cheese!
the real question is what would be the past tense of "to cheese" in english?? i cheesed?
no subject
Date: 2006-08-11 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 04:39 pm (UTC)Maybe part of the certification process should be for the applicant to wash their hands so many times they're chapped. And they need to show their cheese-related scars, calluses, and repetetive motion injuries too.
other qualifications
Date: 2006-08-09 10:10 pm (UTC)1. opened a maggot infested cheese
2. killed a rat in the cooler
3. kicked a rep out of the store.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 05:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 07:40 pm (UTC)A friend of mine brought some cheddar home from a week in Vermont that was the best I've ever had, and I am curious if you're familiar with it. It was the Grafton Village Farm 4 year aged cheddar.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 10:07 pm (UTC)Here I am in front of their sign
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=144613973&size=m
no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 11:06 pm (UTC)oops. here's the pic
Date: 2006-08-09 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-10 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-10 02:59 pm (UTC)your name is not edith fromage, and you didn't invent cheese!
Date: 2006-08-12 02:42 am (UTC)sorry i missed dinner with you and LA co., but i paid spiritually. my former plan for that night was smited (smiten?) by an angry spirit of some sort giving my lover/airport ride the plague, and thus casting me in my helpful, nurse-like (only without the catheters) capacity for the evening.
Re: your name is not edith fromage, and you didn't invent cheese!
Date: 2006-08-14 04:16 pm (UTC)You need to ask Chitinous about the concept to make your unwankable porn a reality.
Благодарю за информацию
Date: 2011-07-09 10:05 am (UTC)Благодарю за блог
Date: 2012-01-30 10:18 pm (UTC)