How to go
What: Cheese Fest
Where: Smale Riverfront Park, 100 W. Mehring Way, Cincinnati
When: 1:30-7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 10
Cost: $35-$45 general, $75 VIP
More info: www.thecheesefest.com
The Cheese Fest, a multi-city festival produced by the Atlanta-based company, Gourmet Foods International (GFI), is moving outdoors to Smale Riverfront Park this weekend for its second year in Cincinnati. Cincinnati is one of only three U.S. cities getting a visit from the GFI Cheese Fest, next to Houston and GFI’s own Atlanta.
“We do a lot of business with Kroger,” Scott said. “And when artisan cheesemakers started to grow so rapidly and we had our own (fest) here in Atlanta, we thought we should share our hometown success with (your) hometown. We also have a distribution center in Cincinnati.”
Last year’s festival was held at the Christian Moerlein Brewery.
The fest will make available for sampling over 300 cheeses from the U.S. and Europe. Natalie Scott, marketing coordinator for GFI, said the idea is to sample more than to binge, so it’s best to approach it like a wine festival.
“Except for the Meltdown and Macdown, there aren’t a lot of cheese dishes,” she said. “The concept is to walk up to the tables and meet the cheesemakers. It’s more interactive, a farmers’ market sort of thing. Most people have a lot of questions, sometimes because they can’t eat cheese made from cow milk. We also put the cheeses near items that go well together. There’s charcuterie, crackers, olives. There’s some guidance.”
The Meltdown and Macdown competition is where various chefs compete to make the make the best grilled cheese sandwich or mac and cheese.
“Attendees can sample them and vote for their favorite,” Scott said. “Besides the People’s Choice award, there’s an award given by a panel of judges, made up of food journalists and industry experts.”
The varieties of cheese and cheesemakers are too numerous to list, but Scott cited parmesan-reggiano, goat cheese, Somerdale English cheeses, and Cabot Clothbound Cheddar cheeses as highlights. Representing for Ohio will be the MacKenzie Creamery of Hiram, a village just over 30 miles from Cleveland, and Sharonville’s own My Artisano Foods. To help wash down the cheese samples, there’ll be plenty of beer, wine and bourbon. For that purpose, GFI is partnering with Christian Moerlein and the Woodford Reserve Distillery in Kentucky.
Despite the many varieties and sources of artisan cheese at the fest, Scott said that, barring a couple of exceptions such as grilled cheese ice cream, festivalgoers probably won’t find anything too exotic.
“Their level of knowledge is surprising,” she said. “They’re pretty educated. They might find some of the stinky cheeses from France a little harder to approach, but that’s all.”
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