“Hello, where are you? I’m at your booth!”
I am sitting with a few cheesemakers from Tqueso Spain enjoying strawberry gelato in a piazza under the hot Italian sun when Evert Schönhage calls my phone. My eyes widen and I tell him that I was just visiting the bathroom and I’ll be right over. Frantically, I scarf down the rest of my frozen treat and run through the crowds of the 2019 Slow Foods Cheese Festival. My heart is pounding in anticipation, because I’m about to come face-to-face with the best cheesemonger in the world.
Arriving back at the Tqueso Spain booth I easily spot Schönhage. He is incredibly tall with steely hair and piercing eyes, hard to miss even in this crowd of thousands. Evert Schönhage is a cheesemonger from the Netherlands who is fresh off of his impressive victory at the Mondial du Fromage. Occurring every two years in the city of Tours, France, the Mondial du Fromage is a cheese-centered exhibition in which the best cheesemongers in the world are invited to compete for the title of World’s Best Cheesemonger.
Schönhage shares with me his journey to becoming champion, a path lined with plenty of hopes and fears. Originally a pastry chef, he found his way into cheese and felt an immediate connection with the industry. Cheese allowed him to get in touch with himself and his community in a way that moved him, and he soon fell in love with his newfound passion. The contest attracted him because it would be proof of his hopes being fulfilled in Cheeseworld. “This past year was my third time competing” he tells me. “I had done so twice before, and was finished with this avenue…but something told me to not give up”. Despite his reservations about returning for a third time, he followed his heart and ended up as the champion of the contest.
What made this time different for him? “I stayed true to my roots, true to who I was” says Schönhage. One of the challenges at the Mondial was to create a giant cheese board the size of a small dining table. The other 10 contestants made elaborate tables that combined cheese with all sorts of products ranging from meats, fruits, flowers, and random miscellaneous objects. Schönhage approached this part of the contest differently, constructing his table using only cheese. “Everyone else added all these bells and whistles, but really that is a distraction from the reason we are all here. This contest is about being the best cheesemonger in the world, so I focused only on cheese”. This purist view for the raw essence of cheese showed great confidence and helped catapult Schönhage to victory.
The following afternoon, Schönhage invited me to the Dutch Presidium booth to taste some of the finest cheeses from Holland. I was greeted with a hug and a chunk of cheese. We sampled an array of Goudas and Leyden, which were proudly shown off by their cheesemakers. We spoke about the fantasy and lore of cheeses. Schönhage showed me photos of the infamous maggot-riddled cheese Casu Marzu that he had obtained and I expressed my envy and admiration of him encountering this rare treasure. I told him of my childhood wish to visit the Dutch city of Alkmaar, famous for its cheese market and wooden stretcher-like devices called barrows that are used to transport cheese. He laughs in appreciation of my fondness for the city. He then shows me a small wooden barrow he built in honor of the Alkmaar cheese tradition. I’m touched by his warmth and grateful for the knowledge and stories he’s shared with me.
If you are ever in Amsterdam, you can find Schönhage at Bourgondisch Lifestyle Gourmet Cheese Shop. He would be more than happy to share cheese with any curious cheese lover!
Photos taken by Evert Schönhage & Brieyoncé
