Cheesemonger – A Life on the Wedge by Gordon Edgar, is the latest addition to my cheese library. Much of my cheese “home schooling” curriculum involves following cheese and food blogs. I found Gordon’s Cheese Blog, discovered that he wrote a book, and then found his book at amazon.ca.
I just finished reading his book this week and thought I would post a cheese book review.
Cheesemonger, A Life on the Wedge by Gordon Edgar was published March 2010. It is current. This is a chart of reader reviews of the book from Amazon.com.
Clearly, most people have enjoyed this book. Click the chart to read other reviews.
The cheese books that I have read so far have been cheese reference guides. There is nothing wrong with that. But those books are tedious to read cover to cover. Cheesemonger – A Life on the Wedge is quite different. It is not a cheese guide, it is a story. It is the auto-biography of Gordon Edgar who is a San Fransisco based political activist, punk rocker turned cheesemonger. The book is filled with words, not pictures.
The book engaged me. The story is well anchored in reference to Gordon’s job as a cheesemonger. He describes his job through snapshots of his experiences with added insight into his perspective on it all. Occasionally the story slides away from cheese and moves toward his social and political views but those digressions are brief and they to help understand Gordon, the person, better. The book succeeds at capturing Gordon’s wit and good humour. I often found myself smiling at his quips, opinions and observations.
This book provides insight into the cheesemonger profession. Through his story I learned more about cheese, cheese retailing, cheese making and farmers.
I believe this book will appeal to most people working in the cheese industry. It is also a good read for cheese fans and curious bystanders to the cheese industry, like me.
I enjoyed this book.
Do you have any cheese book recommendations for me?
The Canada Cheese Man 
Reblogged this on Canadian Heritage Club and commented:
Who doesn’t like at least one cheese?
Great review. I loved Cheesemonger! I’m currently working my way through The Cheese Primer. It’s funny because, while it’s FULL of helpful information, it’s written in that snobby tone that Gordon Edgar warns against.
Added to my amazon wish list! Try Cheeses of the world by Roland Bathelemy and Anaud Sperat-Czar. Written by French men so haughty in the extreme but it still excites and overwhelms me every time I open it!
I read Cheesemonger about a year ago, it’s a good read.
Gordon’s a good guy, very accessible via his blog or Facebook.