"Choose your intensity," says Cole Snell, owner of Provincial Fine Foods. "Well done, medium or rare."
He's referring to Provincial Smoke, the cheese distributor's two-year-old cheddar made at La Fromagerie de l'Île-aux-Grues in Quebec and smoked at Hansen Farms in Cayuga, Ont.
What he means is you can eat the cheese at different levels of smokiness - it is most intense at the rind, then mellows toward the centre of the block. This gradation of flavour is created because Provincial Smoke is not infused with liquid smoke (as many industrialized products on the market are). Instead, it is cold-smoked so that the flavour is strongest on the outside (which has direct contact with the smoke) and tapers off on the inside, where the taste and aroma have gently seeped in.
Provincial Smoke has a natural rind created by the smoking process. It is caramel gold on the exterior, in tones ranging from light to dark. The rind bleeds a little into the edges of the cheese and then fades to a soft gold. The texture is dense, velvety and coats the tongue, while the aroma is heavy, sweet and smoky. The cheddar itself is tangy and smooth, with a rounded, buttery afterglow. In some of the smokier parts of the rind you get an oily, rich saltiness that brings to mind a smoked oyster.
Why make a smoked cheddar?
"We wanted to say to the Applewoods of the world, 'stop doing what you do … you shouldn't use liquid smoke,' " Mr. Snell says. He points out that there is liquid smoke and colourant in many styles of Applewood smoked cheddar. In his opinion, using these additives does not produce an authentic smoked cheese.
Mr. Snell has built his business promoting Canadian artisanal cheese, and at the end of 2009 launched his own cheese standard guidelines called the Authentic Artisanal Canadian Cheese program.
Provincial Smoke is just one of the cheeses he sells that will bear the AACC certification: products that are made using fresh, local milk in small batches (10,000 litres or less) and contain no additives or artificial colouring.
The sticker identifying an AACC cheese acts as a "virtual concierge that creates customer awareness," Mr. Snell says. "It's also good for cheese makers because it educates people as to what they're getting - why the price is the price."
He hopes to get people to pose more questions to their cheese mongers, and to expect authenticity in the products they buy, such as the hands-on techniques used to create Provincial Smoke.
With its layered smoky sweetness, it will become a hard habit to break.
On the block
Cheese: Provincial Smoke
Origin: Toronto
Milk: thermalized cow (Holstein)
Producer: Provincial Fine Foods
Cheese maker: La Fromagerie de l'Île-aux-Grues, Quebec
Type: semi-firm, smoked cheddar, natural rind
Aged: 2 years
Shape: 2.2-kilogram blocks
Distributors: Provincial Fine Foods
Available:
Toronto: Summerhill Market, Pusateri's, Loblaws, About Cheese
Ottawa: Farm Boy
Guelph: Ouderkirk & Taylor
Peterborough: Chasing the Cheese
Sue Riedl studied at the Cordon Bleu in London.
Sue Riedl