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May 25, 2005
A gathering
I'm slowly finding out that becoming a cheese expert is best when accompanied by friends for the following reasons:
- Most cheese stores have a minimum when it comes to cheese purchases. Murray's Cheese, for example, expects that you buy at least a quarter of a pound of each type of cheese. That much cheese is really all one person can eat in one sitting, but, if you have friends over for cheese tasting, you can get lots of different kinds of cheese and not end up feeling sick from overeating. Hooray!
- As a relative beginner to the cheese world, it is difficult to come up with correct words to describe the cheese you're eating. Comments from your friends will allow you to better understand the cheese (how profound!)
- Eating alone kind of sucks.
A few weeks ago, I invited friends for dinner to taste four cheeses:
- Fromage d'Affinois - cow milk, soft, young (2-3 weeks) cheese. Made without using rennet and ripened in a humid cellar. Kind of like Brie, but better.
- Fresh Crottin - sheep milk, soft, fresh cheese. Great with white wine!
- Oka - cow milk, semi-soft, washed-rind cheese. Comes from the village Oka near Montreal, Canada and has been made since 1881 (originally by monks, but not anymore). Aged 2 months, lower fat as far as cheeses go. Sports a "full, fruity, earthy flavor", according to Murray's Cheese. Delicious. It's supposed to resemble Avergne and Savoie traditional in flavor, so I'll have to check those out.
- Hoch Ybrig - cow milk, washed in brine with white wine, pressed cheese. This Swiss cheese comes from a little town near Zurich called Ybrig. It's definitely fun to say. Takes slightly sweet and a bit nutty. Good with heavy red wines.
I am not sure yet, but I think I am developing a taste for what cheese experts describe as "nutty" cheeses. I'm also partial to soft cheeses, like the above-mentioned Fromage d'Affinois, but it seems that soft cheeses are liked by more people than hard cheeses with very defined and strong flavors.
Posted by maggie at May 25, 2005 05:38 PM