The school of roquefort

Lovers of artisan produce can now attend the Academy of Cheese and learn what it takes to be a master of the board

- CHRIS ALLSOP

Would a breakfast cheese-tasting encourage more students to throw off their duvets for 9am lectures? It’s hard to say for sure, but for those attending the Academy of Cheese’s one-day Associate course, this is how the learning day begins.

A group of around 20 cheese fanciers, myself among them, gather within the perfumed fug of cheesemonger Paxton & Whitfield, one of the academy’s 10 training partners spread across the UK. Outside, commuters stride along Jermyn Street scanning their phones, while we scan the name tags of the flagship store’s 150 cheeses reverently. Paxton’s Hero Hirsh, one of our teachers for the day, asks us which we would like to taste.

Launched in 2017, the not-for-profit Academy of Cheese is the brainchild of cheesemaker Mary Quicke. The irrepressible Quicke – a grandee of British artisan cheese, whose company, Quicke’s Cheese, produces award-winning clothbound cheddars – first conceived the idea while on a cheese-judging visit to the US. Witnessing the excitement of the cohort primed to sit the American Cheese Society’s Certified Cheese Professional exam, Quicke was inspired.

“After the exam, I saw that excitement transferred to cheese stalls, mongers, in restaurants with a cheese sommelier selling their heart out,” Quicke recalls. “I realised that from cheesemaking to retail, the exam was upping the game.”

CHEESE REVOLUTION