Massaro: This guy smiles and says 'cheese'

By Gary Massaro, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Mark Hackett is a big cheese in Vermont.

But he and his company like to bill him as the "spokesfarmer" for Cabot Creamery. It's a job he likes to milk for all it's worth as he travels the country, pitching Vermont cheddar to the nibbling public.

How hard could that be? After all, if you listen to Hackett and check out the company literature, you'll find out that back in '98 Cabot cheddar won first prize at the 22nd Biennial World Championship Cheese Contest in - get this - Green Bay, Wis., which probably made a lot of cheeseheads into soreheads.

Hackett, 50, grew up around Boston, but his family had a farm in Vermont, which he used to visit and later worked at. Next thing you know, he's a dairy farmer.

"I milked cows for 25 years," he said.

In 2000, he sold his operation - and he wants you to know he sold it to a fifth-generation dairy farmer.

Cabot's history began in 1919 when a bunch of dairy farmers pledged $5 a cow and a cord of wood each to fire up the boiler for a creamery. They started out making butter and shipping milk to other states. In 1930, they started making cheese.

According to Hackett, Cabot doesn't rush the aging process. He said the sharp and extra-sharp cheddar doesn't have a metallic taste that some people complain about in other cheddars. That's because Cabot's doesn't use an enzyme that makes the cheese age faster.

Whatever. He's right about the flavor, but don't think this is an endorsement. My taste in cheese is probably going to be different from yours.

Cheddar is made from cow milk, and I grew up eating goat cheese from Trinidad and Aguilar.

Hackett stopped by the old newspaper building three blocks west. I had a nice side visit with him. I explained we were moving to a new office to make way for the Hickenlooper Hoosegow.

He had a very good question that I didn't have an answer for, which was, "How come they are putting the jail right next to the Mint?"

I have invited him back because he didn't have a chance to visit Cheesman Park.

Mostly, though, he wanted to talk cheese and mentioned that Cabot cheese is available at Whole Foods and super Wal-Marts in the Denver area.

"The cheese industry is where the wine industry was 20 years ago in the United States," he said.

That could mean that the relatively inexpensive cheese you now devour by the pound will be discovered as the latest fad food by preppies, thereby driving up the price for your favorite American-made cheese from Vermont or Wisconsin or wherever. Then you'll be reading stories about some yupster couple taking out a second mortgage to buy a wheel of brie.

Talk about creating a Muenster.

When Gary Massaro listens, people talk. massarog@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5271