"Say Cheese," read a sign in bold black letters that greeted hordes of smiling visitors as they entered Eno Fine Wines in downtown Providence Monday night. But they weren't going to get their pictures taken. Instead, they were gathering to celebrate the official cutting and release of Rhode Island's first artisan cheeses.
As local farmers, retailers, private cheese-makers and cheese-lovers filed into the crowded shop and helped themselves to cheese and champagne, Providence Mayor David Cicilline '83 and Secretary of State Ralph Mollis cut a flat 10-pound wheel of Divine Providence - a smooth, pale gouda created by Louella Hill '04.
The cheese-makers of Providence's Narragansett Creamery set up colorful platters of fruit, baskets of crackers and mounds of all their handmade cheeses on two high wooden tables in the middle of the shop.
Besides Divine Providence, the creamery displayed a crumbly sea-salt feta called Salty Sea, a versatile farmer's cheese called Queso Blanco, a cream-colored cheese called Atwell's Gold and a glossy white cheese called Renaissance Ricotta.
Cicilline said in his five years as mayor, he had never been invited to a cheese-cutting ceremony before, but was happy to be part of an event important to Providence's food and culinary arts.
Hill, who started cooking professionally when she was 14, said the flavor of an artisan cheese depends on several factors - the grass cows graze on, the smell of the air, and the water and the microbes in the soil where the cheese is made. Hill has been working at the Creamery since it opened in late August.
In a world witnessing the "globalization of our dinner plate," artisan cheeses made in small batches are fresh and unique in flavor, Hill said.
"The idea behind artisan cheese is that no two would ever taste the same," Hill said.
Some artisan cheeses, such as Divine Providence, are made with raw milk obtained within a 50-mile radius of the creamery and aged for 60 days using traditional European methods, said Mark Federico, owner of the Narragansett Creamery.
"In America, people want to pasteurize the heck out of everything," Federico said. "The bacteria (are) produced in a lab somewhere; you have a pasteurized flavor which is the same everywhere."
Federico said all batches of the cheeses made at his creamery have "minor flavor differentials."
Though the Creamery is currently using milk from Connecticut, Federico said his eventual goal is to use milk produced in Rhode Island.
Hill said it is "awesome" that she is making her own line of cheese - "stirring, cutting and pressing it by hand."
As an Environmental Studies concentrator at Brown, Hill said she realized she could not learn about food from books alone. She took her junior year off to live on two farms in Italy and learned to make pecorino cheese, which is made with sheep's milk. This past summer, she worked with a farmer in Maine, learning the art of making goat cheese.
Hill is originally from Bisbee, Ariz., but said she decided to name her cheese Divine Providence after her current hometown.
Hill has already thrust roots into Rhode Island soil: she and Noah Fulmer '05 co-founded Farm Fresh Rhode Island, a non-profit organization that connects farmers with local markets.
Speaking to the crowd after the cutting ceremony, Fulmer said producing foods like cheese locally helps create more jobs in the state.
Fulmer said he hopes to see healthier, locally produced cheeses on the menus of Providence school lunches soon.
Hill said in the future, she would like to start a guild of people who like making cheese to spread awareness of local cheeses in Rhode Island.
Connoisseurs and cheese-lovers present at the event unanimously praised the cheeses and the Narragansett Creamery's efforts to produce cheese locally.
"It is amazing that Rhode Island has its first artisan cheeses," said Darren Montgomery, who helps run the cheese counter at Venda Ravioli, an Italian restaurant, food store and wine bar on Federal Hill. Montgomery said it was about time that Rhode Island produced its own cheeses like other New England states.
Stephanie Wheeler '05 said she loved all the cheeses, especially Divine Providence - which she described as "mild and not pungent at all."
Another cheese-lover, Juliette Rogers GS said she was "thrilled" to be at the event to support cheese and local foods. Divine Providence is "a cheese with great promise," she said.
"It is this good now: the more it ages, the more divine it will be," said Rogers, an anthropology student who studied the French dairy industry in Normandy.
Divine Providence will be available for sale at a few selected outlets, such as Farmstead Inc. in Wayland Square, starting in late January or February of 2008.
