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RALEIGH ­­— Watching judges sniff, rub, eyeball and taste their way through piles of cheeses, a question arises:
How is it that in the 156-year history of the North Carolina State Fair — an institution known for its deep-fried, chocolate-dipped, tobacco-smoked emphasis on the state’s agricultural products — there has never been a cheese competition until this year?

“I honestly don’t know,” said Steve Lathrop, a marketing specialist with the state Department of Agriculture and organizer of the first annual fisticuffs of fromages.

None of the samples judged last week were destined to be shoved on a stick, battered and dunked in a fryer. These were serious cheeses being given the once-over by serious cheese people.

“I was really surprised and excited by the level of cheese making and just the progress that has been made since I left here,” said Cathy Strange, a Texas-based global cheese buyer for Whole Foods who helped judge the contest. A North Carolina native who now judges cheese contests all over the world, Strange said the state’s craft cheese industry has grown in the 15 years since she moved away.

“There were maybe two cheese makers then,” Strange said. Now the Agriculture Department has a roster of 40 artisanal cheese makers — those who produce cheese with milk produced from goats, cows or other animals on farms attached to their own farms.

Although the State Fair opens Thursday, judging for many of the competitions takes place in the weeks running up to the fair.
 
Contests cover everything from who can bake the best pie or grow the largest pumpkin to which 4-H student has raised the best specimen of beef cow.

So why judge cheese?

“To be a cheese maker is skill,” Strange said. “It reflects in the cheese. It’s just like someone who makes a car or builds a cabinet…. You can’t just get some milk and make it into a beautiful cheese.”

Strange and her fellow judges put those skills to the test last week, taking their seats in a food science laboratory on N.C. State’s campus. They took note of whether Swiss cheese had even distribution of bubbles, whether a red pepper covering hid an uneven wheel of cheese, and whether a soft cheese with dark blue veins running through it had maybe a bit too much nose.

Two judges took a look at the technical merits of the cheese in question — was it a good example of the type of cheese? Two other judges gave cheese an aesthetic examination — was it a tasty, good-looking cheese?

In the end, there was a consensus winner: a wheel of aged hard cheese from Chapel Hill Creamery in Chapel Hill that bested offerings from four other farms, including one each in Virginia and Tennessee.

Lucky fairgoers might get to sample the best in show. Last year, cheese makers handed out 80,000 samples at the fair and this year’s best in show will be part of that booth this year.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark. binker@news-record.com