Month: September 2007

Both from Cheesetique, a cheese store in Alexandria/Arlington. They are so nice there — plenty of samples and more USA cheeses than anywhere we’ve been. They are moving to a new, bigger places just a few doors down before the end of the year.

Appalachian
Meadow Creek Dairy
Galax, Va
milk: cow

A dairy in Virginia, closest point in Virginia to David’s house. Appalachian has a supple straw color paste and a white mould rind with glimpses of pink showing through. The flavor is mild and buttery with a spicy finish and a hint of mushroom.

Great Hill Blue
Great Hill Dairy
Marion, MA
milk: cow

Great Hill Blue is an internally ripened variety made with raw, unhomogenized milk resulting in a true gourmet quality cheese. The cheese has a slightly more Yvettedense and yellow curd as no bleach or food colorings are added.

Mt. Tam Triple Cream
Cowgirl Creamery
Point Reyes Station, CA

A smooth, creamy, elegant, 10-oz, triple-cream – made with tasty organic milk from the Straus Family Dairy. MT TAM is firm, yet buttery with a mellow, earthy flavor reminiscent of white mushrooms. MT TAM won 1st Prize in the soft-ripened category at this year’s American Cheese Society competition.

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California Crottin
Redwood Hill Farm
Sebastopol, CA

milk: goat

Our traditional French-style California Crottin has a wrinkly, geotrichum candidum rind, a fluffy texture and robust, earthy flavor. Twice it was voted “Best Farmstead Goat Cheese” at the prestigious American Cheese Society judging and chosen as the best Crottin, better than the French originals, in a recent Wall St. Journal tasting.

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Midnight Moon
Cypress Grove Creamery
Arcata, CA

milk: goat

Aged one year or more, this pale, ivory cheese is firm, dense and smooth with
the slight graininess of a long-aged cheese. The flavor is nutty and
brown-buttery, with prominent caramel notes. The wheel is finished in a
beautiful black wax.

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Vermont Ayr
Crawford Family Farm
Whiting, VT
milk: Ayrshire cow
Our farmstead cheese is made by hand using traditional techniques, and each wheel receives individual attention. Cheese making begins in our kettle-shaped vat within an hour of milking. By adding only a small amount of culture, we succeed in revealing the complex flavors of our “terroir”—the land that the animals graze.

We are currently making one style of cheese, Vermont Ayr, an alpine style farmstead cheese made from raw milk, in 1 and 4 lbs wheels.

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Cave Aged Cheddar
Chapel’s County Creamery
Easton, MD
milk: cow

Chapel’s Country Creamery cave aged cheddar cheese has been aged a minimum of8 months or longer to ensure optimum flavor. This superior cheddar cheese hasjust the right sharpness for any use.

Washington Post had an article on them.

Reggianito. Similar to Italian Parmigiano Reggiano, mostly used for grating. The popular cheese is Reggianito. Because the loaf is smaller, its name is the diminutive in Spanish for the Italian, hard cheese Reggiano. It is made from milk, produced by cows which are pasture fed. Cured longer than competitive, it has an excellent taste and is perfect for cooking or a topping on pasta.
Country: Argentina
Milk: cow milk
Texture: hard
at: 3.4 ms: 3.75 wt: 3.5

Austrian Swiss has a firmer texture than baby Swiss, and is known for being shiny, pale yellow with large holes. Flavor is mild, sweet and nut-like. The process is specifically designed so that no rind forms on the cheese (maturing takes place in vacuum-packed plastic wrapping) for mass-production purposes. The taste of the cheese is very mild. It can be eaten with apples, pears, grapes and thinly-sliced prosciutto ham and salami, fruity white wine, aged red wine, crane-raspberry juice, tomato or vegetable juice. Swiss is the generic name, in the United States, Canada and Australia, for several related varieties of cheese, all of which resemble the Swiss Emmental. Some types of Swiss cheese have a distinctive appearance, as the blocks of the cheese are riddled with holes known as “eyes”. Swiss cheese is known for its nutty taste. In general, the larger the eyes in a Swiss cheese, the more pronounced its flavor; this is because the same conditions that lead to large eyes – longer ageing or higher temperatures – also give the acting bacteria and enzymes more time to produce flavor. This poses a problem for makers of pre-sliced Swiss cheese, the most popular category in the United States. Cheese with large eyes doesn’t slice well, sometimes coming apart in mechanical slicers. This costs time and money and is one reason why US manufacturers usually produce a product less aged and flavorful than imported cheeses of the same style.
Country: Austria
Milk: cow milk
Texture: hard
at: 1.5 ms: 1 wt: 1.5

New York Cheddar. White. Age unknown. Cheddar is always made from cow’s milk and has a slightly crumbly texture if properly cured. If the cheese is too young, the texture is smooth. Cheddar gets a sharper taste the longer it matures. It is generally matured between 9 and 24 months. The important thing in purchasing Cheddar, is to consider the age of the cheese. Could it be: Aged over a shorter period of time, this particular kind of sharp cheddar from New York has a milder flavor and smoother texture than our Extra Sharp. This, more moderating version, affords any recipe the rich flavor of cheddar – it will enhance, not overwhelm, the taste. It pairs well with any herb, particularly sage and rosemary, making it a delightful with marinaded meats and vegetables. If you are looking for a cheese that can boost the flavor yet cut the spiciness of a particular food, this is the cheese for you! Most surprising: This is the preferred cheddar for melting and grilling (think: barbecued meats, grilled sandwiches) and seems to have the more agreeable flavor for children. If you are serving with wine: dry, barrel-aged red wine; or dessert-style white wines will be most complementary.
Country: United States
Milk: cow milk
Texture: hard

at: 2.2 ms: 2 wt: 2
Taleggio. Buttery, delicate, semi-soft and subtlety sweet cheese from Italy made from cow’s milk. It usually has a square shape. The cheese has a special taste and aroma. The crust is pinkish-gray and the paste is white, supple and fruity. It ripens in 25 – 50 days and has a fat content of 48 per cent. There is also a cooked-curd version which is firmer and bears a resemblance to Mozzarella. Taleggio is also known as Stracchino (from the Italian stracche (fatigued) which referred to the cows of the area after travelling back to the valley from their grazing season in the high pastures. Taleggio is an excellent dessert cheese that goes very well with a robust wine.
Country: Italy
Milk: cow milk
Texture: semi-soft
at: 4.8 ms: 4.5 wt: 4

Passendale is a modern, creamery, semi-soft cheese made from cow’s milk. It has a round shape. With its warm, brown crust, lightly dusted with white mould it resembles a loaf of bread. The flavor is mild and creamy. The cheese takes its name from the Flemish village of Passchendaele. The Belgian Passendale has distinctive, bulging, rounded edges and a soft, damp consistency.

at: 3.3 na: 3.5 ms: 2.8 wt: 4

Labor day, September 3, 2007

Le Berger de Rocastin
France
Sheep’s milk
<see above for description>

at: 3.5 wt: 4 na: 4 ms: 3.5

Passendale
Belgium
cow’s milk
Passendale is a modern, creamery, semi-soft cheese made from cow’s milk. It has a round shape. With its warm, brown crust, lightly dusted with white mould it resembles a loaf of bread. The flavor is mild and creamy. The cheese takes its name from the Flemish village of Passchendaele. The Belgian Passendale has distinctive, bulging, rounded edges and a soft,
damp consistency.

at: 3.3 na: 3.5 ms: 2.8 wt: 4

Mahon
Spain
cow’s milk
Mahon is a traditional, creamery, unpasteurized, hard cheese. It is produced from cow’s milk on Minorca, the outermost of the three Spanish Balearic Islands. The hard, orange rind carries the imprint of the cheesecloth and tends to be greasy. The curd is piled in the center of a cloth, square corners are knotted and twisted together and the cheese is pressed and twisted for a few days. This gives the cheese its typical “cushion” shape. Mahon is sold at various stages of maturity. It is usually sold young, when the texture is smooth and supple and the aroma is sweet and fruity. It must be consumed within 10 days.

11/19/2010 Update: I got a chunk of Spanish Mahon Menorca at Brookville tonite. It smells a bit like smelly socks, but not in a bad way. It was a semi-soft cheese and not very aged. Sort of the texture of a fresh asiago. It has little holes. Nice texture and sweet, pleasant taste. Imported by Forever Cheese. They say this Mahon is from Minorca aged between 10-12 months. The milk is thermalized, not pasteurized.

at: 3.8 na: 3.5 ms: 4 wt: 3.8

Parmigiano-reggiano
Italy
cow’s milk
http://www.parmigiano-reggiano.it
Named after an area in Italy, Parma Parmesan is one of the world’s most popular and widely-enjoyed cheeses. Milk used for Parmesan is heated and curdled in copper containers but not before most of the milk’s cream has been separated and removed. Curd is cut and then heated to 125 degrees F, all the while stirring the curd to encourage whey runoff. The curd is further cooked at temperatures of up to 131 degrees F, then pressed in cheesecloth-lined moulds. After two days, the cheeses are removed and salted in brine for a month, then allowed to mature for up to two years in very humid conditions.

What are the small grains you feel under your teeth when you eat a piece of Parmigiano-Reggiano?
Unlike what many people think, they are not grains of salt nor grains of calcium. They are crystals of an amino acid, called tyrosine, which, owing to its molecular conformation, crystallises if it is free and in high concentrations. Together with other amino acids, it is released during the process of protein breakdown triggered by enzymes. Therefore the presence of tyrosine is definitely a practical indication (since it can be experienced by every consumer) of a good degree of maturation of Parmigiano-Reggiano.

at: 3.5 na: 3.5 ms: 3.9 wt: 3.5