Crumbs in my 'Stache: An Old World delegate

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

By Ben Cannon

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Francesco Bianchini, who can be found two days a week offering samples of artisan cheeses at Chef’s Table, is a thin Italian man of some distinction. Raised on a farm outside of Florence, Bianchini was dealing antiques in the beautiful, Medici-influenced city when another interest – fly-fishing – beckoned him to Jackson Hole.

Though his Tuscan homeland boasts one of the most romanticized old-world European landscapes, with a culture that values a life resplendent with the sweet trimmings of food, wine, Renaissance art and the general enjoyment of oneself, it does not offer an abundance of great trout fishing opportunities.

For nearly a decade, Bianchini has been far from his native land – a place where common people enjoy handmade, proudly traditional cheese – and living and working in Jackson Hole, in a country that consumes more processed cheeses than it does the ‘natural’ kind.

And so, as if on a cultural crusade, Bianchini is at Chef’s table on Thursdays and Fridays to help guide the cheese dilettante and burgeoning aficionado alike.
“The everyday cheese of America is a tasteless paste; you can barely tell apart a cheddar or a jack,” he said. “I don’t trust cheese that comes in blocks.”

Bianchini believes that good cheese can yield not only a truly one-of-a-kind taste, but can also, like music, evoke memory and emotions along with a sense of the living earth. Perhaps a man of the cosmos, Bianchini is also thoroughly, proudly Italian and an affable, knowing and poetic ambassador of his native Tuscany.

“One of the most intense experiences for me was to follow the making of Parmigiano cheese [near Tuscany],” he said. “It requires the brain and the muscle with machines of 70 to 80 pounds, all hand-made with very little machine intervention. A good cheese is still made by artisans; artisanship is a step down from art.”

During a lunch rush last week Bianchini offered tastes from northern and southern Europe. He cut from uneven blocks of Parmagiano-Reggiano – the “world’s best cheese,” he said – and a wheel of Dutch Gouda, aged five years into a rich cheese with butterscotch notes.

The artisan cheeses of Europe, where they belong more or less to the everyman, are also imbued with the dietary cultures of their origins, Bianchini said. “Like a good wine, cheese has what the French call ‘terroir’ – or a ‘sense of place.’”

Chef’s Table rotates through cheeses from around the world. Drop by and have some with Bianchini. Or just stop by for a chat about simple, profound experience. Around here, you can’t have too many friends from Italy.

Photo by BEN CANNON
Francesco Bianchini nose cheese.


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Crumbs in my 'Stache: An Old World delegate | Planet JH News Article: Restaurants And Dining

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