Every two years, on a weekend in September, the northwestern Italian town of Bra plays host to Cheese , a reunion of the world’s artisan dairy producers, affineurs (cheese agers), shepherds and cheese experts. The sleepy town, which might seem like an unlikely site for an international exhibition, is also the home of the event’s organizer, Slow Food International . Now in its ninth edition, Cheese has grown from a handful of Italian vendors in a single piazza to a sprawling event that fills streets, churches and schools in a celebration of all things dairy. The event organizers estimate that 200,000 cheese lovers attended this year (Sept. 20-23), making it their most successful thus far. A record number of artisan-produced cheeses were exhibited from Europe and beyond. For the first time, international participants tended to overshadow the staple Italian and French classics.

Over its 25-year history, the slow food movement’s greatest success has been in increasing the visibility — and, in turn, the economic viability — of endangered foods through its Ark of Taste, a growing international catalog that lists and profiles products that are at risk of being forgotten. Accordingly, the theme of Cheese 2013 was “Save a Cheese!’” Slow Food International reserved the highest-profile positions around Bra for the stalls of the shepherds and makers whose products are most under threat from industrial production and changing consumer tastes. The curiosities included Sir iz Mijeha (“Cheese in a Sack”), a cheese encased in an entire sheepskin from Bosnia and Herzegovina; obscure Alpine cheeses wrapped in hay and wild herbs; the hard, spindle-like, smoked Oscypek from Poland; and a selection of Irish raw milk cheeses that have quickly risen in stature since regulations banning their production were struck down. Places not readily associated with a culture of cheese making were also well represented, including Turkey, with its string cheese Turkmen Sacak Peyniri, and Ethiopia, with the Karrayyu Herders’s pungent camel milk. Carlo Petrini, the guru of the slow food movement, explained why it’s important to save and celebrate artisanal, raw milk cheese. “You can taste the breed, the grass the animal ate, if it comes from the mountains, hills or valleys,” he said. “You can taste the expertise of the cheese maker and their culture. It becomes a pleasure, and the difference becomes the real strength.”