The Big Cheese
While holidays are a favorite time for Alberto Martinez’s customers, every gathering is a good time for serving up a vast selection of fancy cheeses, whether at parties or as a cheese course after the entrée and, in either case, paired with their best wines.
As cheese monger at Janssen’s Market in Greenville, Delaware, Martinez doesn’t disappoint. The jovial head cheese has at his command more than 100 different cheese selections from around the world, a tempting array of products made from cow, sheep and goat milk.
But if there were a star atop the world of cheeses it might be Ile-de-France Brie, layered with mascarpone that is studded with black truffles. “It costs about $60 a pound, very expensive, but it is very popular,” he says.
About 10 years ago, Martinez was working in the prepared foods section of the popular upscale market when he was asked to move to the deli section and take over the cheese section, doing the selecting, ordering, and displaying of inventory and answering customer questions.
“I was a little scared,” he says, “because all I knew about cheese was American and Swiss.” But he was a quick learner, working with the merchants who sell deli items to the store as well as attending a cheese seminar in Wisconsin.
As a sommelier in a restaurant does with wine, Martinez asks new customers a range of basic questions — soft or hard, stinky or not, what kind of wine do you drink — before recommending cheeses for them to try. And since Janssen’s prepares party trays for catered events and holidays, many customers come into the store having already tasted something they like and wanting more.
Some of his other go-to choices are Stilton rounds (“some people carve out the top and pour in Port”) and Chiriboga Blue, a mild blue cheese from Germany.
And now that he no longer has to settle for American or Swiss, what is Martinez’s favorite cheese? “I really like Chällerhocker,” Martinez says, “a cow’s milk cheese from Switzerland that has a nice, nutty flavor.”
On Martinez’s wish list for the year ahead is some travel. “I would love to visit the cheese producers in California. They are doing some great things!”
Janssen’s Market Cheese Shop
3801 Kennett Pike, Wilmington, DE; 302-654-9941
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