People say you shouldn't take life too seriously, but there are a few things worth being very serious about — perhaps most important among them is cheese. The Guild of Fine Food agrees with that sentiment, which is why each year for the past 29 years, it holds the World Cheese Awards. Honestly, forget the Oscars; this is the awards show we want tickets to.
We may not have been able to attend this year's competition, which took place in Spain on November 16, but the Guild recently published the results publicly, so we at least know which cheese took home the top prize. The world championship went to a blue cheese called Kraftkar from Tingvollost, a family-run dairy in Norway.
Finding the winner was no simple process. According to the Guild of Fine Food, there were 266 judges from 26 different nations assessing the 3,021 cheeses competing. The judges were split into 66 teams, and each team named a bronze, silver, gold, and "super gold" winner. Then, each cheese that received super gold was judged by a "super jury" made up of experts from the United Kingdom, Japan, South Africa, Mexico, France, Italy, and Sweden.
Gunnar Waagen, a farmer at the Tingvollost dairy, tearfully accepted the award for the Kraftkar saying, "I have no words. It is marvelous. I don’t believe it. We’ve made cheese for about 10 years. We are a little family in the middle of Norway trying to do our best every day." Now that's truly a cheese triumph.
You can watch the competition play out, here.
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