![]() ![]() While he had tried about 3,000 cheeses prior to the show, he was constantly learning about new cheeses and traditions, adding 75 more cheeses to his repertoire. ![]() He wanted to show the beautiful diversity of how cheese is made and consumed in countries throughout the world. This gave me the opportunity to do that and put those cheesemakers and those chefs who have taught me so much over the years on a pedestal,” he said. Pristine said he owes the success of the show to the cheesemakers that he visited. Pristine called it “incredibly humbling.” One of his favorite moments was meeting a sheepherder in Crete who had never been in front of a camera before and learning about the man’s perspective about cheese and his chosen vocation. It's a small country, but has a huge and very long, deep cheese culture,” he explained. “That was exactly the whole point of going to Greece. Pristine wanted to make sure he did an episode on Greece because people only think of Feta cheese, a crumbly goat cheese. With regard to the British Columbia’s cheese scene, the episode was “Not only for Americans, but even for Canadian people, like people in Ontario, Quebec, didn't know they were making stuff like that in British Columbia.” He compared the distance between Toronto and Vancouver in Canada to New York City to Los Angeles in the US. One particular moment he mentioned was going out fishing for sea urchin and other seafood with Chef Paul Moran to make incredible cheese/seafood dishes. While he has no favorite episodes, his favorite to film was British Columbia because it was so beautiful. People were a bit confused about the choice of British Columbia since it is not well known for its cheese like Quebec and Ontario but they trusted Pristine’s vision. “As a proud Canadian, I've really got into the idea of showcasing what we do here, from east coast to west,” Pristine said, “I visited three of the biggest cheese producing provinces in Canada and I am so happy I did.” While he had plans to go to Italy and the US for episodes, thanks to COVID-19, the show had to make some changes on the fly and he ended up including more provinces in Canada. In addition to running the family cheese shop Cheese Boutique, Pristine had made appearances on Top Chef Canada, Menu Match-Up, and other shows so when Food Network Canada approached him to do his own show, Pristine said, “they didn’t have to ask me twice.” He credited the network for being very good to him and giving him a lot of creative freedom to choose where to go and what people to see. Now he’s spent 25 years in cheesemaking and is one of Canada’s youngest and only maître fromager, a cheese master, and author of cookbook For the Love of Cheese and a forthcoming cookbook in 2024. That’s how he got started in his love affair with cheese. “It was a job and it was an opportunity to do something unique and an opportunity to provide for their family, and to put food on our table,” Pristine explained. ![]() Neither had cheese backgrounds but they figured it out how to make the business work. They saw a need for a cheese shop in the neighborhood. His parents emigrated from Europe to Canada and needed a job. Afrim Pristine, co-owner of Cheese Boutique in Toronto, Canada, knew his way around cheese and television but noted that his vocation could have been anything it just happened to be cheese. ![]()
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