Spain's Prolific Ambassador

Spain's Prolific Ambassador

- David Gibbons

Over the past four decades, Enric Canut has worn many hats—dairy-farming consultant, print and television journalist, marketer, wholesaler and author of no less than nine books on cheese—and thereby truly earned his reputation as the guru of Spanish cheeses, their greatest champion and ambassador.

Born in Barcelona into a family of gourmets with roots in the salt-mining zone of the Catalan Pyrenees, Canut, 61, knew from a tender age that he wanted a career harvesting from the land. As an undergraduate at the University of Barcelona he worked as a farmhand and cheesemaking apprentice at a Gouda Boerenkaas producer in Holland.

“I spent four months milking cows, mucking out stalls and making cheese and butter,” Canut recalls, adding drily, “I quickly came to the conclusion that the most exciting thing was to make cheese and butter.” Back then, Canut’s entrepreneurial bent surfaced: He proposed variations on traditional cumin flavored Goudas, subbing oregano, chives and other herbs and spices, an idea that subsequently took hold among Gouda makers.

After graduating in 1978 with a degree in agricultural engineering, Canut was hired by the organizers of Barcelona’s food fair, Alimentaria, to conduct a survey of the Catalan cheese landscape. He spent three months roving the countryside in a Citroen Deux Chevaux, rounding up farmstead cheeses and launching his career.