Few things help foster a sense of worldliness as much as food. With so many intricate preparations and flavors, good food gives us a chance to experience a small slice of life from halfway around the world without spending hundreds, if not thousands, to travel.

Sushi from Japan, biryani from India or spaetzle from Germany, a traditional dish gives us insight and flavor from a culture we may not have experience with. However, there are types of food that are familiar no matter where they are from. Bread, for example, no matter where it comes from offers a sense of familiarity. While the flavor, texture and process of making it may be unique there is a different connectivity to it than foods that have little to nothing in common can provide. The warm, homey, feeling of eating a doughy piece of bread makes us feel at home no matter where it comes from. The same is true for another food that can be found all over the world, cheese!

“I think for everyone, no matter who you are, we’re all connected to food,” Adrienne D’Arconte, owner of Edgewood Cheese Shop, said. “We all have food memories of stuff we had when we were a kid or special dinners we had with our families. So my husband and I wanted to open a business in our neighborhood, and we were just trying to think and kept coming back to the big question, ‘What do we want to eat?’. We kept coming back to cheese.”

Whether made from sheep’s milk, goat’s milk, cow’s milk or perhaps some vegan alternative it is common knowledge that cheese is one of the most popular foods around the world. Every continent has its own styles and flavors of the sometimes salty, sometimes sweet, sometimes savory and sometimes just plain strange food that is cheese, and there is no better place in Cranston to get a taste of the variety cheese can offer than Edgewood Cheese Shop, located at 1828 Broad St. Celebrating its eighth year in business this month, the cheese shop has been serving the Cranston community diligently with flavorful cheese since it opened.

100 kinds of cheese

“I think we have almost 100 different cheeses right now,” said D’Arconte. “We’re always changing it. We get new cheeses in every week, and we sample almost everything in here so people can find the types of cheese they like. I think of it being kind of like the penny candy experience but for grownups. We encourage people to come in and try things.”

No matter your taste in cheese you are guaranteed to find something to satisfy your needs. A blueberry lemon goat cheese from Westfield farms in Massachusetts brings a smooth texture to the slightly salty and fruity flavor of a traditional goat cheese. Some goat cheese can acquire an almost grainy texture in its aging process, but this one has a way of just melting in your mouth.

“It’s a small mom and pop operation, but you can tell that they really take care of those goats,” D’Arconte said. “Some cheeses you can hide an industrial sort of milk, but with goat cheese it's just there. All those flavors and textures are out in the open. The quality of the goat’s milk is so important.”

Another display of the fantastic cheese you can find right here in the United States would be Shooting Star Creamery's Sagittarius. A half sheep milk, half cow milk gouda, this particular cheese is bound to give you a new appreciation for gouda.

“When she was still in high school she started entering these blind cheese competitions,” D’Arconte said about the maker, Avery Jones. “She actually came in second in the country for one of her cheeses. She does things that she thinks are missing in the market. That’s why she works a lot with sheep’s milk. It really brings a different flavor and texture to the finished product.”

Just in a single visit one may find themselves trying a dozen different cheeses that they’d never even heard of before. Something not surprising once you get the chance to meet Adrienne D’Arconte. Every cheese you taste in the shop comes with a short history lesson in the art of cheese making. For example, did you know that washing the rind of a cheese during its production can drastically change its flavor?

“Washed rind is a category of cheese in which as you’re aging them you, as you’d think, wash the rind,” D’Arconte explained. “It could be washed in brine, it could be washed in beer, other alcohols or some even do it with a mixture of herbs. Basically, over time what you’re going to get is a sticky grittiness on the rind and what that does is make it taste different. Cheeses with washed rinds get anywhere from mildly funky to that almost sweaty gym sock kind of smell.”

So much flavor from the smell

While that may sound unpleasant to many, those who truly love cheese will know just how much flavor can come from that smell. For example, the Drunken Goat is a goat’s milk cheese produced in the town of Jumilla in Murcia. Creamy, bright white and with subtle notes of the region's Doble Pasta red wine, this semi-firm cheese has an almost fruity flavor while being wrapped in a richly red, almost purple, rind.

“It’s so funny how almost no one comes to cheese directly,” D’Arconte said while discussing how she and her husband got into the business. “I mean yeah, some people inherit the business, but a lot of people on the retail side are all over the place. I’ve met people who were archeologists or stock traders who all kinda came to it because it keeps calling you back. I even remember being a small kid sampling different cheeses and thinking ‘This is awesome!’.”

Cheese isn’t the only thing you can find in the shop, however. If it is related to cheese it’s here. Cheese boards, cured meats, crackers, jams, pasta and more are accompanied by a delightful selection of local goods like coasters, Yacht Club sodas and even locally produced clothing items. For those new to the world of charcuterie, a selection of preserved foods served with cheeses and crackers or bread, Edgewood Cheese Shop has the perfect way to get started, premade platters. That’s right; D’Arconte will put together a perfect selection to get you started on your road to cheese heaven. With Mother’s Day coming soon, the shop even has a special Mother’s Day platter that is sure to please. Ranging from $95 to $175, orders for these wonderful treats for mom can be placed ahead and picked up on May 11, 12 or 13.

Whether you’re a seasoned cheese veteran, or just getting started on your journey Edgewood Cheese Shop makes for a perfect place to visit to try something new and expand your horizons.