When I was grow­ing up we had 2 or three choices when it came to cheese; ched­dar, Colby and moz­zarella. We had cheese slices for burg­ers and grilled cheese, jars of Cheese Whiz for slop­ping on cel­ery sticks, some­thing called “Velveeta” and, for a real treat, the laugh­ing cow. Almost all of these were made by KRAFT, or Black Diamond, and none of them was really inspir­ing. Cheese came from a factory.

Sure, we knew that were other choices out there, stinky blue cheeses, runny Brie and Camembert, goat’s milk cheeses, but these were hard to find and were for spe­cial occa­sions only. Certainly none of the exotic vari­eties were avail­able at our cor­ner store, and when you could find them, the pack­ages indi­cated that they all came from far away lands, places where cheese mak­ing was a way of life.

The thought of a truly great cheese being made in your vicin­ity was almost unthink­able; leave that to France, Italy, Switzerland. The old coun­try. Maybe Quebec, that’s about as local as it got; great wheels of the stuff churned out by mur­mur­ing monks hid­den away in an enchanted monastery that time forgot.

Well, we all know that has changed. Environmental and social aware­ness has spread to the aver­age con­sumer and is not just the con­cern of the voices off­stage; Ontario cheese mak­ers have moved into the cen­tre stage and are now becom­ing stars of the move­ment. After all, the best cheese is made with organic, and locally sourced milk attained from eth­i­cally treated ani­mals, so why wouldn’t it work?  This is why arti­sanal dairies like Ruth Klahsen’s Montforte Dairy and Prince Edward County’s Fifth Town Cheese are lead­ers in the field.

Lavender Chevre

Fifth town Cheese pro­duces some of the finest arti­sanal cheese avail­able, made from hor­mone and antibi­otic free sheep, goat and cows milk sourced from Local Food Plus (LFP) cer­ti­fied farms, achiev­ing Platinum LEED accred­i­ta­tion under the Leadership in Energy and envi­ron­men­tal Design.

And the bot­tom line for us, the aver­age con­sumer? Their cheese is out­stand­ing. Over two dozen vari­eties are avail­able, Fresh cheese, washed-rind, soft ripened, hard cheese, brine ripened….there is so much more than Colby or Marble avail­able for us now.

Pick up some fresh Lavender Chevre or some washed rind Morning Moon and save the Velveeta for Ants on a Log or these wacky Nutburgers!