A conversation with Wisconsin cheese legend Chris Gentine.
culture: Back when you started Deer Creek Cheese in 2006, Wisconsin cheddars really built the foundation. At what point did you decide it’s time to get weird and start adding flavors?
Chris Gentine: [My daughter] Sophie says it best: Consistency is at the core of what we do. When we branched out to do unique things, we didn’t want to have something that was just another well-made cheese. We wanted to make something that had different nuances but was still approachable. Over the years, [my wife] Julie has helped me understand that having a real depth of flavor and taking your palate on a journey is what we want to do.
C: What was the first flavored cheese you made?
That’s a hard question. We were working on them at about the same time. The idea for the Blue Jay may have started at our kitchen island first, but we were also working on a spicy cheese in actual trials. The Rattlesnake was sold in October and the Blue Jay was sold in November of the same year. So, we really don’t know. Each took a certain number of tweaks to get it right.
C: How did the Blue Jay come to be?
CG: It was the first time we worked with Sid Cook of Carr Valley Cheese. Sid makes, what, over 100 different cheeses? So, when Julie and I went there and sat down with him we said, “Hey, we like what you do here and we think we could do something fun with a blue base and tweak it just a little bit.” We told him we wanted to incorporate the juniper berry in there, and he’s sitting there thinking and smelling the cheese. He looks at Julie and he’s says, “This is your idea, huh?” She says yes, and I ask, “Well, don’t you want to make it?” He goes, “Oh, no, we’re going to make this cheese. I just don’t know how the hell I didn’t think of this one!”
C: How is the origin of a flavored cheese different than, say, one of your flagship cheddars?
CG: You really have to work to get things balanced. You can’t just throw stuff in. The Doe is another example of really getting that balance correct with the vanilla dust that we put into that cheese. You have to watch these things, and sometimes it takes usayearandahalfortwoyearstogeta cheese right. We also want these things to be Deer Creek-y enough. We want ’em to be unique and we don’t want to step on other people’s toes because there’s enough copying in the industry.
The last flavored cheese we did was the Wild Boar. I would say we’re probably a little late to truffle at Deer Creek, so [with this cheese] I tried to push it and bring in more forest floor mushrooms and have it be this little forest floor concept. After 11 months, something happened and the cheese blew up, so it was like, okay, well that won’t work.
C: Walk me through the methods of adding flavor to a cheese—have you tried them all?
CG: At this point, we don’t use anything that’s similar to a rub—other people are doing that, so we want to steer clear there. We look at putting ingredients into cheese, partially for aesthetic beauty. When you look at the Doe, you see those beautiful lines of vanilla running around the curds, and with the Carawaybou, you get the nice open texture of the Colby, but you also get the caraway in there. I think that’s an old-school way to impart those spices or herbs or whatever you’re going to put in there. We doubled down with the Rattlesnake by adding habanero and then tequila. We added it because one, I like tequila, but we also wanted to add a third dimension. You have a great base layer cheese, then you add habanero, and then the tequila tricks you because you get that sweetness from the tequila and the cheddar cheese note, and then that knife blade of heat comes in.
C: What are your favorite ways to cook with flavored cheese?
CG: The Doe is a cool one because it’s subtle on the vanilla—you get more of it on the exhale, and it adds a woodsy, almost umami beefy note. But when you incorporate it into mac and cheese (we have a recipe for it on our website), the vanilla blows the doors off the oven. I tell people that if they take that to a cocktail party around the holidays, whether they’re your friends or not, they will be once they taste this.
Madison Trapkin
Former Editor-in-Chief Madison Trapkin is an Atlanta-bred, Boston-based writer. She graduated from Boston University’s Gastronomy master’s Program in December 2018 and started at culture in March 2019. She is passionate about The Feminist Agenda, pizza, and regularly watering her houseplants.
