Ep 27: Cheese as a cultural artifact; coming to grips with the environment, sustainability and changing diets; and the importance of asking awkward questions.

Bronwen Percival

Cheese Buyer for Neal's Yard Dairy and Co-author of Reinventing the Wheel: Milk, Microbes and the Fight for Real Cheese

Subscribe to What’s Burning wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google  Podcasts | Audible & more.

Bronwen Percival is the cheese buyer for Neal’s Yard Dairy in London. In addition to working with cheesemakers and the company’s maturation team to select and optimize the quality of the cheese they sell, she works to mobilize collaboration between cheesemakers and the scientific community.

In 2012, she instigated a biennial conference on the Science of Artisan Cheese. In early 2014, she spent two months in the Dutton Lab at Harvard University studying the role of marine-associated Proteobacteria on cheese rinds.

Along with Dr. Benjamin Wolfe, she co-founded the website MicrobialFoods.org, a scientific resource for producers, purveyors, and enthusiasts of artisan microbial foods. She is the co-author, with her husband Francis, of Reinventing the Wheel: Milk, Microbes, and the Fight for Real Cheese (UC Press, 2017).

On this episode, Bronwen joins host Mitchell Davis and discusses cheese as a cultural artifact; coming to grips with the environment, sustainability and changing diets; and the importance of asking awkward questions. 

Follow Bronwen on Instagram: @bronwenpercival.

For more of Bronwen’s work and cheese, visit:  scienceofartisancheese.com, microbialfoods.org,  londongastronomyseminars.com and nealsyarddairy.co.uk