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Your instructors during the cheese
course:
Charles Leary and Vaughn
J. Perret
Leary and Perret were among the
first group of North Americans inducted into the French Guilde
des fromagers during a special ceremony at the American Cheese
Society meeting in Madison, Wisconsin in 1994. They have experience
as farmstead cheese makers, affineurs, marketers, and
restaurateurs, including establishing innovative wine and cheese
programs. They have designed a built creameries in Louisiana and
Nova Scotia, Canada and managed both dairy goat and dairy sheep
operations, including dairy sheep importations into both the U.S.
and Canada.
From 1990 to 1998 they operated
Chicory Farm in Mount Hermon, Louisiana. Chicory Farm produced some
of the most celebrated American artisanal cheeses of the 1990s,
including products from every major cheese category, i.e. pasta
filata, soft and surface ripened, washed-rind, pressed, hard-pressed
and from cow, goat, and sheep milk. In 1995, they opened their
own New Orleans restaurant, the Chicory Farm Cafe, which
featured their cheeses both in cooking and in cheese courses.
Chicory Farm also won a competitive research grant from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture for research in sustainable dairy sheep
production for tropical and sub-tropical conditions, leading to the
award of the first annual Tibbetts Award from the Small Business
Administration, a national honor.
Perret and Leary educated themselves
in cheese production over many years, however they came from
substantial professional and educational backgrounds. They worked
closely with Richard Graham at the Louisiana Department of Health
and Hospitals to develop sanitary and inspection protocols for
small cheese plants. At Chicory Farm, they both produced their own
goat and sheep milk, and purchased cow's milk from a nearby small
dairy farmer. Leary attended the Washington State University
Cheesemaking Short Course, and both investigated French cheese
production and marketing in France, including Loire goat cheese
production under the auspices of ITOVIC and a special inspection of
Androuet's famed cheese shop and restaurant in Paris.
Chicory Farm cheese became renowned in the
U.S.,
particularly due to their application of
French cheese
production and affinage techniques in the Louisiana
environment.
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Chicory Farm cheese were served by many of the top
restaurants in the country, including not only New Orleans
favorites like Emeril's, Brigsten's, and Commander's Palace, but
also Picholine, Le Bernardin, and Gramercy Tavern in New York, the
Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco, Everest in Chicago, and Bacchanalia
in Atlanta.
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- Chicory Farm cheese were
featured at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, Colorado and at
a Mobil 5-Diamond Chef Awards Dinner
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- Chicory Farm's Catahoula was
named one of the two favorite American cheeses of Max McCalman,
then of the restaurant Picholine in New York. (Interview with
Florence Fabricant, New York Times, 1997)
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- Chicory Farm's cheeses selected by
Marrion Burros, New York Times, for her 1996 Christmas gift
recommendations: "From CHICORY FARM comes an interesting
assortment of cheeses. Catahoula is for those who like cheese
that's sharp, smelly and creamy; Orleans is not unlike Brie --
soft and buttery; St. John is a semi-soft cheese of cow's and
goat's milk or cow's and sheep's milk. "
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- Chicory Farm cheese exhibited
at the Fancy Food Show, 1994, along with the French cheeses of
Chantal Plasse.
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- Catahoula singled out by Murray's
Cheese Shop owner Rob Kaufelt, New York Times, 1995
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- Chicory Farm became member of
the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade: "the Fancy
Food Show can also be counted on for some good, new, serious
products . . . worth noting were . . . distinctive Chicory Farm
cheeses made in Mount Herman, La. Florence Fabricant, New York
Times, 1995. "Cheeses? Capriole introduced Piper's Moon, a
soft-ripening Camembert-style chevre. An excellent whole-milk
mozzarella and a mild Gruyere-style St. Helena were new from
Chicory Farm. " Florence Fabricant, New York times,
1996
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- The French cheese buyer for Dean
& Deluca declared, upon tasting Chicory Farm cheeses in 1995,
"the Americans have finally learned to make
cheese."
Leary and Perret then
sold Chicory Farm and went on to found the Acadian Farm Creamery
in southern Nova Scotia. Here they achieved approval both from
provincial authorities and from the federal Canadian Food Inspection
Agency for a new artisanal cheese plant working with goat and cow's
milk. Among the cheeses produced here were a natural raw cow's milk
blue cheese. Marq DeVilliers writing in Food & Wine
magazine noted: "It is mature, aged for two years, every bit as good
as a high-end Stilton. The cheese is made from unpasteurized local
milk and from molds that exist naturally on the farm, giving the
cheese a unique character." They also made natural-rind pressed
cheeses featured by the National Post. They closed the
creamery to focus on their work at Trout Point Lodge in 2002, where
cheeses are featured in cooking and in cheese courses, and they
offer short courses on cheesemaking and appreciation. At Trout Point
they have also developed a program on cheese and wine pairing, using
the Lodge's 130+ bottle wine list. They have published recipes in the New Orleans
Times-Picayune, Food & Wine, Harrowsmith Country Life, and
Louisiana Cookin'. Their first cookbook was published by Random
House in 2004 to critical praise. Charles Leary has an honors undergraduate
degree from Kenyon College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell
University. Vaughn Perret received his B.A. from Loyola University,
studied graduate anthropology at Tulane University, and got his
Juris Doctorate from Cornell. They have worked as culinary
instructors since 2000.
"This led me to Catahoula, a cheese from
Chicory
Farm in Louisiana (no longer, I believe,
made) - simply the best American
cheese I have ever tasted;
a funky bayou Epoisses."
The
Pink Pig
Background photo courtesy
of www.gruyere.com
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