Every two years, the Dairy Farmers of Canada hosts a gigantic, cross-country cheese contest known as the Canadian Cheese Grand Prix. Cheese made of 100 per cent Canadian milk is judged in 27 different categories and this year, 268 cheese entries were submitted from cheese makers from Prince Edward Island to British Columbia. Eighty-one finalists were selected and a panel of judges spent an entire weekend smelling, tasting, and touching cheese, evaluating the products for appearance, flavour, colour, texture and body, and salt content before determining the winners, who were announced at a recent gala in Toronto.
Thrillingly, the local dairy, Tiras, topped all comers in the brine-ripened category with its cow’s milk feta (pictured in the blue bowl in the photo). Owned and operated by a local Hutterite colony, Tiras specializes in Mediterranean cheese, including saganaki (available at Smokin’ Iron Farms, a deli and butcher in Edmonton, according to the Tiras website). Rocky Mountain Quark is also one of its products, as well as the award-winning Vlahos Feta.
According to Julian Bond, one of the judges who stopped in Edmonton Tuesday on a cross-Canada tour to promote the winning cheese, the feta was exemplary for several reasons. It was not too dry, and had a nicely balanced salt profile, plus it stays intact when you cut it, and doesn’t crumble as do so many other feta brands.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Edmonton Journal