Emila D’Albero – via Instagram
In France, where cheese has a museum, and there’s a hospital ward for foreigners who get sick eating French cheese, is it really a surprise that they have a cheesemonger olympics?
A cheesemonger is the person who sources and sells cheese to the community—a respectable profession says Emilia D’Albero, the first US woman, and the first American to boot, to win gold in said olympics.
From Philadelphia, the city where she learned the profession at the Philly Cheese School, D’Albero has been cheesemongering for years under the TikTok handle @punkrockparmigiano, but it was her first time medaling at the olympics, held in Tours, France.
“My teammate, Courtney Johnson, and I are the first all-female team USA,” D’Albero told CBS News. “They had never sent two girls before.”
Beating out cheese stronghold nations like Switzerland, Spain, Italy, and of course, France, D’Albero had to compete in four events: a blind tasting, the “perfect cut,” a cheese sculpture, and a 100-centimeter square plateau centered around a theme.
She hopes that the heavy gold medal will bring the attention which her profession so richly deserves.
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“In other parts of the world, like Europe, being a cheesemonger is seen as a really respected career,” D’Albero said. “In America it’s not as respected as it should be. It’s definitely skilled labor. We have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the cheeses in the case.”
While most Americans know only about as many cheeses as what go on pizza and sandwiches, there are some amazing American cheesemakers, which have also won awards for their cheeses.
A great start would be Point Reyes Farmstead in California, who’s Bay Blue is the perfect first-timer blue cheese you could hope to find—and you don’t even have to pay the import duty.
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