Is Cheese Art?

"...nature is still a mystery, you never see it whole.  It's like me, always slipping away."  Jean-Paul Riopelle 1923-2002

Beginning as he described himself as a "Sunday Painter", Riopelle developed into one of our national treasurers, an absract painter who used large varieties of different coloured paint applied thickly to the canvas with a trowel.  In the years from 1942-45, he became part of a group in Paris known as the "Automatistes" known for their spontaneous method of painting.  In his later life, he divided his time between two homes in Québec, one of which was in  Isles-aux-Grues, a little island in the St. Lawrence east of Québec City.  This little island is only 4.5 miles long and 1.5 miles wide and boasts a population of 120 people!  From this tiny island comes this fabulous cheese named for an equally fabulous artist.  Riopelle, the cheese, is a raw milk triple cream with a bloomy rind.  It melts in your mouth leaving behind tastes of hazelnut and mushroom with a buttery paste.  In 2004, Riopelle won the Canadian Cheese Grand Prix, a testament to the dedication of the cheesemaker to produce a cheese worthy of the Riopelle name.  When asked to give his name to this outstanding cheese, Jean Paul Riopelle made a few conditions.  Firstly, that the cheese be of the highest quality and that $1 from each wheel of cheese sold go towards a fund to help educate the young people of the Isles-aux-Grues.  He also provided the original painting which graces the outside of the wheel.  He died in March of 2002 without having tasted his namesake cheese.

Is cheese art?  In the case of Riopelle, the answer is " Mais Oui!"

Bon Appetit!