Book Review: Tenaya Darlington’s “Madame Fromage’s Adventures in Cheese”

Tenaya Darlington’s latest work, Madame Fromage’s Adventures in Cheese, joins other notable cheese manuals such as Erika Kubick’s Cheese Sex Death and the late Anne Saxelby’s The New Rules of Cheese in presenting an education in fromage through a smart, well-executed gimmick. In this case of this book — one that literally grabs you by the hand with its whimsically textured cover and invites you along for the ride — the language of travel becomes an extended metaphor around cheese exploration, whether you’re interested in traveling around Paris to visit every miniature cheese shop, traveling around the Swiss Alps in pursuit of a cow parade, or simply traveling around a beautifully-composed cheese board in the comfort of your own kitchen.

That Darlington herself is part of Anna Juhl’s Cheese Journeys team, which hosts cheese vacations in important dairy destinations, makes her especially poised to deliver a cheese education in this way. With equal parts storytelling, science, and sensuality, Darlington presents a welcome literary addition to the cheese exploration canon.

 

Cheese Adventure Itineraries

After an introductory section categorized as “Discovery,” which delves into topics such as cheese history, artisanal versus industrial cheese, and the science of cheese, the body of the book features 8 cheese “adventures” — deep dives into various important cheese styles with sections in each chapter on “navigating” pairings, possible “detours” that suggest other harmonious cheeses of different styles, profiles of quirky curds and shops that are “off-the-beaten-path,” tips for culinary “exploration,” and “field guides” with various cheese personalities. (Cheese Professor celebrities Mike Geno, Betty Koster, and Olivia Haver are among those featured in these breakout sections.) Several chapters also include “grate escapes:” tales from Darlington’s own travels with cheese.

This travel-themed metaphorical language is consistent throughout, (even the acknowledgments detail the “odyssey” the book took to come into being,) but Darlington’s approach is so charming and aspirational that it never feels sledgehammered in, and the mechanism is decidedly effective in delivering an engaging cheese education.

 

The Road Less Traveled

A departure from her last book, Di Bruno Bros. House of Cheese, (see our review) Adventures in Cheese doesn’t chronicle a particularly extensive number of cheeses. Each chapter rather focuses on 4 to 5 selections that best illuminate the category — bloomies, blues, etc. — with both traditional and contemporary cheeses accounted for. This is number one when it comes to aspects here I found extremely original among cheese books: Darlington offers cheese plates composed entirely of cheeses of a singular style as a means of exploring one category at a time. (As someone who regularly teaches cheese classes, I’m fully borrowing her all-Cheddar lineup as an instructive tool.)

Darlington also offers several other elements I found unique and much needed. A “field trip through flavor” is presented in a chapter dedicated to cheeses that are “Smoked, Truffled, Herby, and Spiced,” which are often overlooked by connoisseurs as less serious cheeses, despite their immense popularity among casual cheese consumers. (“There’s no shame in cheese love,” says Darlington, if you are drawn to pumpkin-spice cheddar.) Page space is also allocated to “Friends with restrictions,” which outlines strategies and information when it comes to navigating vegetarian cheeses, kosher cheeses, and cheeses that are appropriate for pregnant people or those with lactose intolerance. Finally, I found it refreshing that beverage pairings in every section also included spirit, cocktail, and/or tea recommendations, going beyond the usual suspects of wine, beer, and cider.

 

Saying Cheese

One of Darlington’s biggest strengths when it comes to the challenge of writing about something so ultimately sensory is the creativity of her language when it comes to describing cheese. I said it 3 years ago and I stand by it now: she’s the top curdsmith among cheese writers. My brand new copy of “Adventures in Cheese” became well-loved quickly for the number of pages I dog- eared where I thought some turn of phrase especially clever: “cupcake of stinky suppleness,” “Roquefort-and-roll,” etc. She also has a Patti Smith-like dreamery in her approach, that always feels inclusive and aspirational: even if none of us has a chance to visit some of the places she highlights, she writes as though we were there all along.

In one section, Darlington describes a new model of Paris fromagerie, one where the mongers come out from behind the counter to interact with customers more closely, putting the cheeses literally within reach rather than behind glass. In effect, this is what Darlington does in “Adventures in Cheese,” taking cheese enthusiasts by the hand and inviting them to explore cheese more closely, through the metaphor of travel.