Anthony Femia is a cheesemonger. Not just any cheesemonger, but an internationally recognised cheesemonger who regularly sets off on wandering cheesemonger trips around the world and in 2018 was the first Australian cheesemonger to be invited to the caves of Marcel Petite in the Jura mountains in France to select his very own flavour profile of Comté. Luckily for us, Anthony calls Melbourne home and in 2015 he opened Maker and Monger in the Prahran Market, so you can get along there and sample the glorious Comté for yourselves. But that’s not all, there is all kind of cheesy goodness going on down there and Anthony very much sees the cheesemonger role as one of educator as much as seller of cheese. He loves it. Having spent over a decade refining his own knowledge, here and overseas, through reading, research and tasting and of course by spending time with master cheesemongers and top cheesemakers, he very happily imparts his fromage largesse. I felt honoured to sit down with Anthony and get a glimpse of that knowledge and we honestly could have talked for hours about seasonality, affinage and what makes a good blue cheese. To celebrate eight years of the ‘chapel of cheese’, as Anthony likes to refer to the permanent stand in the Prahran Market, he has been running a Friends of Fromage series over August and this will continue into September with every weekend featuring toasties made by iconic Melbourne chefs. So far tastebuds have been treated by friends of the podcast, Dave Verheul, Shannon Martinez and Tom Sarafian, so I’d be blocking out the next few weekends if I were you and heading down to Prahran Market.