Union Square Farmers Market: My First Taste as a Cheesemonger

I cringe a little at the label given to the profession to which I aspire. Cheesemonger? I know monger is the term used for the dealer of certain goods to customers (i.e. fishmonger, ironmonger). But it sounds terrible. Not to mention it conjures up more commonly known negative words like war-monger or gossip-monger. Cheesemonger sounds like a shifty cheese troll who will break into your house, fight your children for their string cheese, wipe you clean of dairy, and leave fat and flatulent. If I were a kid, I'd sleep with one eye open, clutching my String-Ums. That said, I'm not sure what else to call it. Cheese dealer? No, making cheese sound like crack would scare off families. Cheese supplier? No, makes cheese sound like equipment or office supplies. Cheese fairy? Okay cheesemonger it is.

Saturday was my first day to be a legitimate cheesemonger. I had a bit of practice the weekend before in the cheese store on the farm. But I mostly observed Leslie, while I practiced wrapping pieces. I was unsure as to how much or how little customer contact I'd have at the Union Square Farmers market in New York City. Everything I had heard indicated that it would be a long, exhausting, intense day. 

I woke up at 3:30 am in order to chug enough coffee to keep me awake for the ride to New York. Mark picked me up in the cheese van at 4:30 am. Cato Corner has a weekly presence at three major Saturday NYC farmers markets, including two in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan at Union Square. The cheese van holds the cheese for all three markets and makes the rounds on Saturday morning to drop off supplies to each market. I initially thought the concept of a "cheese van" was hilariously awesome. It's a less cartoonish version of Scooby Doo's Mystery Machine, but replace the smell of smoke with the smell of chilled cheese. I'm already scheming a comic strip that incorporates the cheese van as the vehicle for the antics of my cheese mascot, the Provolone Ranger.

We arrived to set up at Union Square right at 6:30am. Almost as soon as we had set up the tent, customers were approaching to buy cheese. I was still getting lessons from my fellow cheesemongers about how to handle the knives, cut the cheese (haha get your chuckles out now), and accurately measure the pieces before cutting. The first few I cut were a catastrophe. The knives, which aren't that sharp anyway, were impossible for me to hold steady through the thick blocks. I was nervously cutting crooked pieces and pieces twice the size of what they were meant to be. I wasn't as conversant as the others on the flavor profiles of the cheese. I couldn't even tell the cheeses apart when they weren't left in the labeled cases. The customers looked at me like they had gotten a raw deal picking the newbie cheesemonger to help them. It seemed like the day would be much longer than I thought.

By the time I looked at my clock for the first time at 10am, I had begun to master almost everything I was previously screwing up. I picked up on the lingo. I figured out a technique to cut accurate pieces. Above all I was enjoying talking to customers about what they liked and the purchases they were making. I was starting to feed off the energy of the crowd and gain a little confidence. By the end of the day, I was able to cut pieces within one tenth of the pound 90% of the time. I was also able to steer the customers to a suitable cheese for whatever dish they mentioned they were wanting to cook that evening.

The highlight of my day, and the reason I've always wanted to do what I'm doing and open a cheese store some day, came after lunch. A woman with a fresh bouquet from the flower stand stopped by and cheerfully asked me about some of our cheese. I recommended a few I thought she might like and cut some samples. She made her selections. As I was handing over her change, she said "you all just brightened my day; I've got these flowers and this cheese and I'm ready to go home happy." Flowers and cheese! Could it get much better?! It made all my early morning foibles worth it, knowing I had made someone's day a little brighter with cheese helped them find.

It was a long day but I loved it. I was so happy to see and meet people as excited about cheese as I am, as well as people who were unsure about cheese who found something they love through a few samples. Not everyone was a smiling face. There were a few difficult customers, which required me to suppress the side of me that would prefer to punch rude people in the throat with reckless abandon. Still, it wasn't too hard to get over the malcontents. Most people who came by were happy people interested in cheese, from the $50 purchase for a party to the group of friends who just wanted small slices to eat with fresh bread for lunch in the park.

A few good friends who live in the city (Ambyr, Jaime, Katie) stopped by to visit and purchase some cheese. These are people who have known me for many years. I imagined looking through their eyes, and assumed it was a bit bizarre to see the person they knew from the days of yore, frantically hawking cheese at the farmers market. Seeing good friends for the first time in weeks both comforted me and helped make it all feel real. I was helping both my friends and complete strangers find a piece of joy in an alpine cheese, a young cheese, or even a stinky cheese. I was a cheesemonger.