American cheeses have come a long way in flavor, sophistication

Twenty years ago, domestic cheeses were few and far between. Sure, there were some mass-produced factory cheeses from Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Amish cheeses, and maybe if you drove there, you could get a taste of some real Vermont white (yes, cheese can be white). Primarily, most people identified domestic cheese as American cheese a bright yellow block enriched by cow's milk and vegetable oil. With the exception of the Vella Cheese Co. in California and Maytag Dairy Farms in Iowa, there were few people creating small, hand-crafted or artisan batches of cheese prior to the 1980s.

Moving into the early '90s, cheese counters were just starting to truly understand what America had to offer, and the idea of a specialty-foods shop was, well, innovative unless you were living in San Francisco or New York. In smaller cities, you'd probably find a nice aged domestic cheddar, Maytag Blue, and if it was really an adventurous place, some fresh goat cheese.

Even 10 years ago, with the burgeoning American artisan cheese movement with attention to particular style and detail domestic cheeses were still not quite getting the notice they deserved. Steve Jenkins' cheese opus, "The Cheese Primer", only had about 70 pages dedicated to American cheese makers while France took up about 170 pages.

But because of the popularity of the Food Network, celebrity chefs and better marketing (and better reputations), domestic cheese is now being embraced. Vermont alone has more than three-dozen cheese makers producing more than 150 varieties. Our cheese counter at Katzinger's has roughly 100 cheeses, and more than two dozen are domestic artisan and farmstead cheeses, ranging from mild to wild. Consider the Shepherd's Wheel, Vermont's award-winning earthy sheep's milk cheese. For a soft and tangy goat/cow blend, try the cheese produced in Louisiana by chef John Folse's Bittersweet Plantation. For those who like a gloriously pungent cheese, there's an oozy, stinky washed rind, fittingly named Hooligan, from Connecticut's Cato Corner Farm. In short, domestic cheese is on the rise.

Nowadays, there are bookstore and library shelves overflowing with American cheese information, such as the recent "Atlas of American Artisan Cheese", by Jeffrey P. Roberts, as well as websites committed to nothing but cheese makers and mongers who have there own blogs, columns, and books. Some are revered as celebrities.

Still, there are those who have not accepted domestic cheeses into their lives. There are those who turn their noses at goat cheese produced in the Midwest or Gouda from the South. And there are those, both foreign and American, who insist only the French or Swiss can produce serious cheese. Considering that most of the cheese styles being produced in the states are borrowed from old European styles, as well as the various large cheese conglomerates that are ripping off name-protected cheese, this is understandable.

Cheese dynasties aside, small artisanal cheese makers are probably not trying to rip off anyone. Rather, they're sticking to age-old recipes and usually taking them to another level, or using the basis of these recipes to create their own styles. For example, Rogue Creamery in Oregon produces a Gorgonzola-style cheese that they creatively refer to as Oregonzola, which retains many similarities to the Italian cheese, but its buttery flavor distinguishes it from Gorgonzola. Another great name derived from an original recipe is Cato Corner's Womanchego, based on Spain's premier cheese, Manchego. Cato Corner tweaks the Manchego recipe by using cow's milk as opposed to sheep's milk, which creates a much more acidic flavor than Manchego. Still others produce cheese with little or no resemblance to the old styles, such as Vella Cheese Co.'s Dry Jack, a cheese-style that has become purely American.

America has truly found a voice and position in the cheese world that leaps beyond the notion of bright yellow semi-soft slices.

Wendy Hunsinger is the specialty-foods manager for Katzinger's in German Village.