Since 2009, Emma Young has been involved in various aspects of the cheese industry, including retail, wholesale, cheesemaking, and judging. She currently works as a teacher and consultant.
Scroll through Emma Young’s Instagram account, @thecheeseexplorer, and you’ll be immediately plunged into a whirlwind of cheese, travel, and discovery. From her London base, Young is a frequent jet-setter, immersing herself in every facet of the cheese world—from the bustling markets of Lebanon to the historic cheesemaking regions of France. During her 13 years in cheese, Young has worn many hats: cheesemonger, judge, author, consultant, and she recently published her debut book, The Cheese Wheel, in which she shares her extensive and technical knowledge in a fun and approachable tone. When we connected recently, Young shared insights into the pivotal light bulb moments that shaped her career, how she’s helping the next generation of cheese professionals find their path, and what’s on the horizon for this globetrotter.
Culture (CM): Thanks for taking the time to chat with me! First off, where are you today?
Emma Young (EY): I’m back home in not-sunny England. I got back from France yesterday evening, and I’m back to the grind with an inbox of 6,000 emails to reply to.
CM: You seem to rack up a lot of frequent flyer miles. Is most of your travel cheese-related?
EY: The last couple of months have been insane. Everything that’s happened has been cheese-related and Europe-based, but that’s not always the case. Trips can be anything from producer visits to judging to speaking about my book at a cheese festival, so it’s quite wild at the moment.
CM: Your work has taken you all around the world in search of cheese and the people who produce it. Is there one trip or place that sticks out in your mind as a once-in-a-lifetime experience?
EY: A recent trip that will never leave my brain was in April this year when I went to the Brazilian cheese awards (Mundial do Queijo), which is a three-part competition. The first competition was judging: They had around 900 artisan cheese entries from around Brazil and further afield. Then there was a cheesemonger competition—which was very similar to the Cheesemonger Invitational, but with less cow and crazy—and an affineur competition, where cheesemakers were given a certain timeframe to create three unique ways of affinage for a cheese.
So I was judging on the supreme panel for all of the competitions while also being in the middle of a Brazilian cheese fair and festival, hanging out with some of the biggest names in cheese. It was incredibly surreal and completely rewarding. I came back from that thinking, “This is exactly why I do what I do.” How fortunate I am to be able to have these travel experiences to enrich what I do, and to be able to share that with other people as well.
CM: In the opening of your book, you talk about finding your way to cheese through a part-time job after graduating college. This is a very common route into the industry; however, it is less common to become an internationally known author, judge, and consultant. Was there a specific moment when you knew this was going to become your career path?
EY: I don’t know if there was ever one single moment where I thought, “Yeah, this is it.” It just sort of all happened, and I went with it. It started as a part-time job after I finished my degree, and then I just completely immersed myself. That’s how my personality works in lots of ways. The way that I like to learn is to experience as much as possible and then be able to teach it to make sure I’m learning it properly.
I think the moments when I started hosting master classes and when my Instagram started growing were probably the moments where I realized, “Okay, this is a career, but this is also something that can actually benefit others,” which is something that I’m an advocate for. It’s important to me to share the knowledge, experience, and everything that I’ve been privileged to see on my own. Those teaching moments would probably have been the defining, “Oh my gosh—this is a career and actually I am kind of an expert in my field, and that’s cool ’cause it’s cheese.”
CM: Do you have any advice to cheesemongers who would like to continue working in cheese beyond the counter?
EY: I think the key is finding out what you want to do first. Do you want to make cheese? Do you want to go into wholesale? Do you want to teach about it? Just having a think of which route you want to go down, and then honing in on that, would be my main advice.
Once you’ve got that down, then find the right people to connect with. I’m always open on Instagram to anyone who wants advice. I’ve mentored quite a few wee bubbas—people who’ve reached out to ask exactly that question of, “What can I do next,” or “Where do I go?” The cheese world is your oyster because it’s made everywhere and there are loads of different paths to go down.
CM: It often seems like an entrepreneurial spirit is necessary to succeed in this industry. There aren’t a lot of blueprints, so you have to be willing to just go for it.
EY: Exactly. There isn’t a blueprint. In other food industries, like chefing, for instance, you know that there is a specific route that you can go down. In cheese, it’s, “Ooh, what do I do?”
But there are loads of exams that you can take now. And there are loads of people who are willing to share. And in terms of experiential learning, for me, that’s the best way. Get your hands on some cheesemaking, do a stage, talk to people in the industry. Everyone’s really willing to share and grow that enthusiasm and knowledge, so it’s quite a nice time to be around.
CM: Your first book, The Cheese Wheel, was published last year. What was the impetus for writing it? Did your educational background in linguistics inform your decision to write a book?
EY: I wanted to write a book for a few years prior to that, but I never got ’round to solidifying the exact plan and methodology. I had actually put it to the side, so when I got approached by the publisher, they commissioned it. They asked me to write a book about cheese and flavor, and they had the idea of it being a flavor wheel, but the rest was just sort of given to me to put together.
Penguin Random House came to me and said, “We know it’s you who needs to write this, but we don’t know exactly how it needs to be written. These are our ideas, can we work together on how to make it a thing?” They were really trusting and basically let me guide the book with them vetting everything.
I put together the chapters of flavor in terms of styles of cheese, and tried to make it pedagogical but in a really approachable and accessible way—in the same tone that I teach and use on my Instagram. It’s not a textbook. It’s very much my voice, and it’s about making things easy to remember.
It wasn’t the book that I was planning on writing—the one that I was planning on writing is still in the cards, though.
CM: Writing about food, especially something as nuanced as cheese, can be challenging. How did you go about making the sensory experience come alive on the page?
EY: The way I did that was to make sure it was really, really understandable, and to relate it to experiences that people already had, plus make it humorous. I was trying to make what can be quite a boring or methodical experience really interesting by giving it a structure and making sure it’s accessible and available to everyone.
You all have your own experiences, which are very specific flavors that other people won’t know because of your background and the environment you’ve grown up in. For example, while I’d have strawberry laces and sweets, someone else might have strawberry horchata. My main goal was to make it broad enough to be accessible to everyone, but to also make sure that it’s actually quite an enjoyable experience. And when you do find those sorts of memory flavor links, it’s really fun.
CM: You mentioned the possibility of another book. Is there anything you can share with us about future projects? Any new topics or themes in the world of cheese you’re eager to explore next?
EY: I have some projects in the pipeline. I still haven’t honed it in, but I want to see how I can make the Cheese Explorer into a book, how you can actually do it yourself and not just listen to all my rantings. Something region-based: where you can stay, a bit about the history of the cheese, why the terroir is important and how that affects the style of cheese, and why it’s made there. Plus, fun bits of where you can go and play with some goats.
CM: I love that! When I was learning about cheese, understanding the historical context and regional significance was one of my first light bulb moments, when it clicked and the puzzle became clearer.
EY: It’s amazing, isn’t it? I’ve had even more light bulb moments in the last week and last month where I’ve thought, “Oh my god, I knew that and I understood where I was, but my goodness.” The more you dive in, the more you’re like, “Oh, and this bit too, and this is how it all fits together.”
Last week I visited lots of Reblochon producers, and I didn’t know that there was Alpage production of Reblochon where they actually go up into the mountains for six months and make cheese at a higher altitude. I was like, “Why don’t we communicate this more? Because it’s actually quite special.” It was one of those moments where you know that you are gonna be constantly learning for the rest of your life and your career. It’s quite nice.
CM: I know you’re a seasoned cheese judge, having participated in the World Cheese Awards, International Cheese Awards, and many more. What is it like getting to participate in these events?
EY: That may be another one of my light bulb moments. The first time I was actually judging cheese, I was like, “What the hell? Who is putting their confidence in little tiny me to judge cheese?!” That was quite a light bulb moment.
It’s an enormous privilege to be part of a group of people who give feedback to cheese producers. To say whether one cheese is better than another, or whether it’s following the right sort of path of flavor and affinage, and whether it’s true to a type, et cetera. It’s kind of a “what gives us the right to do this” moment, in a very humble way.
These competitions are really enriching in that you get to taste loads of different cheeses in one go and compare them with each other, which is exciting. But you also have the social aspect where you are able to connect and share experiences with cheesemongers, judges, makers, and whoever else from around the world. I think that’s an incredibly important part of the judging process—to have opportunities to share with others where you might not in normal circumstances.
CM: You just touched on it, but thinking back to your first time judging, did you experience imposter syndrome? Do you ever experience that in your daily life anymore?
EY: One hundred percent in the beginning. Why am I here? What am I doing? What credentials do I have? But now, absolutely not. I know why I am there, and I’ve done enough of them to understand how to do it. Nowadays, I feel privileged to be there, and to know that I am one of the experts in my field.
The imposter syndrome was mainly from the lack of experience—like, in a “I have no idea what I’m doing, please guide me,” sort of way. But other judges are generally quite nice in teaching you and guiding you along the way.
However, when I first started, I did have some negative experiences in that I was not a middle-aged white man. It was questions like, “Are you a steward?”—No, I’m here to judge. That happened for quite a few years. But nowadays, I don’t even flinch. If someone asks if I’m a steward, I don’t mind. It’s like when you get ID’d in the pub when you’re younger and you get really offended, and now it’s like, “Please ID me.”
Josie Krogh
Josie Krogh is culture's Digital Strategy Lead. She earned her master's degree in Agricultural and Applied Economics from The University of Georgia. Josie developed a love of food while working at farmstands in the D.C. area as a young adult, and discovered her love of cheese while living and working on a dairy farm on Martha's Vineyard. Josie currently lives in Catskill, NY.
