Laura Chenel (born 1948–1949)
is a cheese maker who was America's first commercial producer of
goat cheese
Goat cheese, or chèvre ( or ; from French ''fromage de chèvre'' 'goat cheese'), is cheese made from goat's milk. Goats were among the first animals to be domesticated for producing food. Goat cheese is made around the world with a variety ...
, and helped to popularize goat cheese in America. In 1979, she began producing
chèvre
Goat cheese, or chèvre ( or ; from French ''fromage de chèvre'' 'goat cheese'), is cheese made from goat's milk. Goats were among the first animals to be domesticated for producing food. Goat cheese is made around the world with a variety of ...
in the
Bay Area town of
Sebastopol, California, after a fact-finding trip to visit goat cheese producers in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
. After several months of working to sell her product to local markets (with mixed success, due to American unfamiliarity with goat cheeses at the time), she received her first major opportunity when
Alice Waters
Alice Louise Waters (born April 28, 1944) is an American chef, restaurateur, and author. In 1971 she opened Chez Panisse, a Berkeley, California restaurant famous for its role in creating the farm-to-table movement and for pioneering Californi ...
of
Chez Panisse
Chez Panisse is a Berkeley, California, restaurant, known as one of the originators of the style of cooking known as California cuisine, and the farm-to-table movement. The restaurant emphasizes ingredients rather than technique and has develo ...
in
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...
placed a standing order for her cheese in 1980. Waters listed the cheese by name on her menu (as "Laura Chenel's Chèvre", in what may have been the first American instance of goat cheese salad), which provided Chenel with a great deal of publicity. Eventually, her operation would grow to sell over two million pounds of cheese per year.
The company primarily manufactures fresh chèvre, although aged cheeses make up roughly 10% of its business. In 2006, Chenel sold the company to the Rians Group
fr, a French corporation which has purchased multiple small farming operations, while retaining ownership of her herd of five hundred goats.
See also
*
List of cheesemakers
This is a list of notable cheesemakers. Cheesemakers are people or companies that make cheese, who have developed the knowledge and skills required to convert milk into cheese. Cheesemaking involves controlling precisely the types and amounts o ...
References
External links
*
Biography at starchefs.com
1940s births
Living people
American women in business
Cheesemakers
People from Sebastopol, California
Food and drink in the San Francisco Bay Area
Agriculture in California
Dairy products companies in California
21st-century American women
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