On a Saturday afternoon, I survey the offerings of the Bedford Cheese Shop. This gourmet store at the center of hip Brooklyn bills itself as being “based on old-world ideals with a loyalty to our family . . . dedicated to the time honored traditions of the culinary and agricultural world.” Placards display tasting notes for each of the shop’s carefully selected cheeses. Serpa has the “odor of a Roman orgy and the buttery rich flavor of a naughty Portuguese shepherd.” Tasting the kunik is like joining a “ménage à trois with a cow and a goat.” Reblochon—once called fromage de devotion because the farmers of the Thônes Valley made it for the Carthusian monks who blessed their homes—has the “aroma of a busy day around Anna Nicole’s house.”
Behind these witticisms stands a complicated fact about hip Brooklyn and the culture it represents. America’s tastemakers have become obsessed with tradition—heritage and vintage are the marketer’s magic words—but they resist any suggestion that the past has the power to bind. Men dress like lumberjacks and women like Mad Men housewives, but both shy from assertions of sexual difference. Respect for the way monks brewed their ale (ora et labora) is not matched by a similar appreciation for the prayer that structured their lives. A desire to emulate grandmother’s pickling and needlework does not extend to the habit she felt to be most important: daily Bible reading. Hipsters are ambivalent reactionaries who love every aspect of tradition—except its authority.
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