Washington Cheese Scene

To say that Washington’s artisan cheese industry is young is as much an understatement as calling France’s old. While there are a few older farms—most notably Quillisascut Farms in the northeast corner of the state—most are relative babies in the worldwide cheesemaking lifespan. Just three years ago, the Washington State Cheesemaker’s Association was founded with the goal to help grow the local industry and help the products gain the recognition they deserved. Today, looking from farmers markets to supermarkets, casual bistros to fine dining, the culinary landscape of Washington is dotted with well-known and well-anointed cheeses and cheesemakers.

In 1987, when Rover’s opened in Seattle, it introduced the city to farm-to-table, local, seasonal eating. The same year, Quillisascut Farm was opening in Rice, Washington. So fate, it would seem, was on Lora Lea’s side when in 1989 she showed up, bearing her cheeses, to introduce Thierry Rautureau to her product. The Chef in the Hat, as he is known, immediately took to the product and placed it on Rover’s menu of haute cuisine. Soon, other bastions of fine dining in the area like Ray’s Boathouse became a market for local artisan products. Yet this was no gold rush. It took another decade for the big names to establish themselves and jumpstart the industry.

Quillisascut may have carved out the niche, but it was Beecher’s Handmade Cheese that took the niche and hollowed it out like they were creating an aging cave. In 2002, Kurt Dammeier took the all-out approach to selling his cheese. By hiring experienced cheesemaker Brad Sinko from Oregon, where the artisan cheese industry has a bit more history, and purchasing a prominent space in the Pike Place Market, Dammeier set himself up for success and created a launching point for the popularization of what he dubbed ‘handmade cheese.’

Once you’ve pushed through the crowds of Pike Place Market and fought through to the entrance of Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, you immediately realize why it was so hard to get in. Once in, nobody wants to leave. Whether they dropped in for a sandwich or to shop at this veritable pantheon of cheese related equipment, they stop in front of the giant window running lengthwise through the room. On one side are the shoppers and the wares for which they yearn. On the other side, two cheesemakers, head to toe in white scrubs, stand over a vat of cheese curds. The crowd watches as the two of them methodically work their way across the field of cheese, breaking up the curds, seemingly unaware of their own spectacle. From here, the inside of Beecher’s, it is easy to see why people flock here.

Aside from the cheesemaking, there is cheese. Not just the many Beecher’s varieties, but also other artisan cheeses. There are cheeses aging and aged cheeses, things to serve cheese on and things to serve on cheese. Books on cooking with cheese, or, for the lazier among us, pre-frozen cheese dishes. For those with time, the shop also serves various cheese inspired dishes, including grilled cheese—with or without Dungeness crab—and Beecher’s World’s Best Mac and Cheese (their wording, not mine). The quantity within this shrine to all things cheese, however, is not the only reason people flock here—it is also about the quality of cheesemaking going on behind that window.

Beecher’s website lists the many awards that their cheeses have received, including the World Cheese Award and the American Cheese Society Awards. The awards, mostly from 2005 on, are concurrent with the rise of Washington cheesemaking. The American Cheese Society is the accepted barometer of cheese excellence. In 2004 there was not a single winner from Washington state, where as in the most recent 2007 awards, there were eight awards given to Washington cheese.

As the market demands more and more cheese (have you seen your local restaurant menu lately?), competition increases and the artisan cheese industry continues to improve. So taste the cheeses of Washington whenever possible and know that in addition to eating some of the freshest, purest, most delicious cheeses in the country, you are supporting a blossoming local industry.