La Pine Library is hosting a free event this Saturday, “Not Your Mama’s Cheddar,” as part of Deschutes Public Library’s monthlong exploration of fermentation, decay and rot.
Teri Tith is leading Saturday’s event, drawing on her extensive knowledge about cheese and years of experience working as a cheesemonger at Market of Choice in Bend to help educate the public about this delicacy, including cheddar, her personal favorite.
But to say Tith is a cheese expert is an understatement. She’s a Certified Cheese Professional, which she was awarded in 2023 by the American Cheese Society. Tith earned that distinction by working more than 4,000 hours in the cheese industry, and she also had to pass an exam testing her knowledge on the production, distribution and science of cheese.
Tith also holds a Level 3 certification in wine from the Wine and Spirits Educational Trust, which she says has helped inform the kinds of wines she selects for wine and cheese pairing events at tasting rooms in Bend.
While most people know about the natural pairing of cheese and wine, most don’t know about the pairing possibilities of cheese and sake, an alcoholic beverage made from fermented rice. Last autumn, Tith offered cheese and sake pairing classes and is now pursuing a Level 2 certification to boost her knowledge of this traditional Japanese beverage.
Tith joins us to share more details and insights into artisanal cheeses made in Oregon and beyond.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We end today with cheese.Teri Tith from Bend is a Certified Cheese Professional. She earned that distinction from the American Cheese Society after working more than 4,000 hours in the cheese industry and passing an exam that tested her knowledge of the production, distribution, and science of cheese. She offers classes in cheese pairings and will be hosting a free event this Saturday at the La Pine Library. It is called “Not Your Mama’s Cheddar.” Terry Tith, welcome to Think Out Loud.
Terry Tith: Thank you so much. Thanks for giving me this opportunity to talk about cheese.
Miller: I am thrilled to have you on. When did you first get interested, seriously interested, in cheese?
Tith: Well, it was about a decade ago, and an acquaintance of mine was a chef in town. I really admired her food, and she approached me and my husband about starting a cheese business. And we did, and we ran it for a few years until I couldn’t anymore. And that was just the start of that love affair, I’d say.
Miller: That’s actually, that’s… I was assuming that you were gonna say it went way back. So, you weren’t a huge cheese fan growing up?
Tith: You know, my grandma and my mom, they gave me cheddar, really sharp cheddar. I thought that was the only kind there was, but I’ve since learned better.
Miller: OK, so you liked cheddar growing up, but you weren’t a full cheesehead.
Tith: No, I had not been introduced to the great world of artisanal cheeses, European cheeses. I mean, maybe in my 20s and 30s, I could afford a little brie, something a little more exotic, but I really wish I discovered it sooner because I think taste buds are fun.
Miller: You’ve spent a number of years working at the cheese counter at Market of Choice in Bend, I understand. What kinds of questions do people ask you when they come up to the counter?
Tith: It’s interesting, most times people have a list and they’re in a hurry. Not everybody, but that’s really why I wanted to start my side business and start educating about cheese, cause it really wasn’t that satisfying to not be able to have a longer conversation.
Miller: They had their shopping list, they want to get their shopping done, and you want to talk for half an hour about cheese.
Tith: Yeah, where’s this cheese and be quick about it. But I’ve had very interesting in-depth conversations about raw milk cheese, lactose in cheese, you know – “What are those crunchy crystal things anyway?” “What makes a cheese orange?” And it was so fun learning the answers to all these questions as I studied cheese. I spent a lot of money just to get certified, a lot of hours, time and effort, and I wanted to do something with it, something more than just those quick conversations at the cheese counter.
Miller: I want to hear about that certification in just a second, but the questions you just mentioned, let’s just get an answer to one of them. What are those crunchy crystal things in some cheese?
Tith: All right, when you’re talking about an artisan cheese, live cultures are in it. Cheese cultures.They add flavors, they take it different directions depending on what cheese you’re intending to create. And what’s happening is, we call cheese a “live food.” It’s fermentation, just another type of fermentation.
And those crystals are formed as the protein in cheese, and that protein is called caseine. The protein is being broken down into its baser components which are amino acids. So, tyrosine crystals are what they are, and it’s an amino acid. And it’s usually an indication of a really delicious cheese.
Miller: All right, so let’s get to the certification. You are a Certified Cheese Professional. What did it take to get that distinction?
Tith: Even I smile when you say that, because when I tell someone that at a party, they just kind of crack a smile, like, “You’re kidding me, right?” Nobody’s ever heard of this, unless you’re in the industry. So the 4,000 hours, it’s working at the cheese counter. It’s the business I started and had to wind down. It’s classes I took, it’s cheese festivals I went to. I learned how to make simple cheeses. All of that counted, and they won’t even let you sit for that exam until you prove you’ve done that. So if you’re just starting out at a cheese counter, you’ve got a few years to go.
Miller: And then the exam. What were you tested on in the exam?
Tith: Really great question. This exam, given by the American Cheese Society, is very broad, but not very deep. So, say you’re a cheesemonger like myself. I am employed. My day job is a paid-by-the-hour cheesemonger, it’s not a huge, huge salary.
But you have to know something about how to sell cheese, how to pair cheese, you have to know something about how the different cheeses are made. You have to know and understand basic things about the great cheeses of the world, the ones that are probably in your case. Distribution, the laws that apply, FDA laws as they apply, food labeling, how to read a nutritional label. We were tested on all those things.
Miller: For various professional wine certifications that there have been documentaries about, what most stands out to me, in my memory, at least, is blind tastings. In addition to knowledge tests, where the would-be sommelier or wine expert, they’re given some wine and they have to identify what it is, what the flavor profile is, where it came from, maybe even the year, things that seem extraordinary to mere mortals. Is there anything like that for cheese?
Tith: Yes, and by the way, there’s multiple different wine credentialing organizations. My wine credential is through the Wine and Spirits Education Trust. And as you go up in levels, starting with one, and four is the highest one, that’s the diploma level. That’s where you’re doing blind tasting. You have to guess the varietal, that means what grape, how old is it? Drink, now you have to evaluate it.
With cheese, in this exam, you do not. But it’s 150 multiple choice questions and you have just three hours to do it. However, I will mention, the certifying organization, ACS is the acronym for American Cheese Society, they have a second exam that is all about tasting and evaluating. And I actually helped set up the room where they were giving this exam in Sacramento, where they held their annual conference last July, and it blew my mind.
And I was wondering why they had, at a cheese conference, why did they have all these wine glasses in front of them? And it was later explained to me by someone who’d taken the exam, that what they’re doing is they’re putting milk in all those glasses, and then they’re putting a certain aroma or flavor in those glasses. And you have to identify, you have to nail what you’re smelling. Isn’t that crazy?
And then they had a stack of papers about a half an inch thick, 8 1/2 by 11 – no, actually it was legal size paper – one for each type of cheese, and you had to evaluate that cheese, each one that they put in front of you.
Miller: They were putting droppers of some kind of odoriferous thing in milk, as opposed to just… because it seems like, just eat the cheese. That seems like a pretty easy way to do it.
Tith: Yeah, no, you have to prove that you know what you’re smelling. You have to identify correctly.
Miller: Are you going to be doing this?
Tith: I don’t think I’m going that direction. No, I’m having too much fun talking to people in the community.
Miller: Speaking of that, you are going to have your cheddar event this Saturday at La Pine Library. What can people expect?
Tith: Well, they can expect to taste some cheddar, for one thing. And I’m gonna blow their minds. They’re gonna know more about cheddar than they ever expected to know, probably.
And I have to credit, there’s a book I picked up. They had a little library as a section, a component of the conference that I went to this summer. And I picked up a book by Gordon Edgar. It’s called, “Cheddar: A Journey to the Heart of America’s Most Iconic Cheese.” And I had read this author before. He’s really good at writing. He makes you laugh out loud.
But it blew my mind. I learned so much about cheddar in that book. So I’m drawing from his heavily footnoted book, a very researched book, to enlighten people about cheddar in La Pine this coming weekend.
Miller: Do you have a favorite cheese yourself?
Tith: Well, that’s why I picked cheddar. People ask me that question all the time, which is silly, and I try to turn it around because really, my job is to help them find what cheese they’re gonna love next. But I always say it’s cheddar and it really gets a curious look.
But what I’ve learned is that cheddar isn’t just one thing. It’s not just that sharp cheddar that my grandmother and my mother gave me growing up, the one that makes your nose perspire. There is a huge range of cheddar and it’s a very interesting story. It came from England, but it’s probably our most favorite, most beloved cheese in America.
Miller: There’s a long culinary history of cheese being paired with wine, but you have been working on pairing it with sake, with the Japanese beverage made from fermented rice. How’d you start doing that?
Tith: That is correct. Well, first of all, it started way back when. Many years ago, I married a guy who was a fisherman. So we ate a lot of fish at home. But we’d go to restaurants and we’d do sushi. And I always struggled with what sake to order. We finally found one we like, and we’d all say, oh, we want the one in the brown bottle. I couldn’t even pronounce the name for years. But I saw this class being offered at one of our local wine tasting bars in Bend, and this guy named Eli Nygren, who is a certified sake expert, he’s certified through the same credentialing organization I’m studying to get my credential in sake.
Anyway, Eli, I heard him say in this class, and we weren’t pairing it with any foods, he was just tasting wonderful sakes with us, and he said, “You know, sake doesn’t just go with raw fish.” And so, that really got my attention. When you think about it, it makes sense. In Japan, they don’t just eat raw fish every day. They have a whole cuisine over there. Think Kobe beef, they’ve got pork dishes, think ramen. They do sake with all that, different kinds of sake.
So I went up to Eli after the class and I said, “Hey, Eli.”
I introduced myself. I said, “Let’s prove it. Let’s do a sake and cheese pairing.” And we did, many months later.
Miller: And the rest is history.
Tith: And then we did another one. Not with Eli, he was kind enough to share his slides with us, and another friend of mine who worked at a local liquor store that has one of the best sake selections in town, he presented with me so I could just focus on the cheese, but I really wanna do it again.
In fact, I’m talking to you, we have a business in town called the Bend Language Institute. They have a new Japanese language instructor, and sometimes they do food and cultural things in addition to that. The owner of that business and I are talking about presenting the next one along with some etiquette of serving sake.
Miller: Teri, thanks so much for your time. I appreciate it.
Tith: Thank you for the time to talk about cheese.
Miller: Teri Tith is a Certified Cheese Professional in Bend.
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