28 May 2010
Sleightlett
A small raw goat’s milk cheese from Somerset, bought from Neals Yard Dairy
This little squat, disc-like little round of cheese is covered in a bloomy grey and white mould. The centre’s bright white. It’s soft and creamy, slightly fluffy, wth a grainy fine-sand texture.
It’s an intensely creamy cheese, with a subtle fresh fruityness, fragrant and citrussy – lemon zest and orange flowers, I think. The bright fresh milkiness makes it feels like a very clean, clear cheese; it makes me think of tall glasses of fresh, cool milk. A touck of acididty gives a very slight hint of yoghurtiness. The rind is soft and sweet, with a touch of dry dustyness; henna powder, or dried, sun-warmed straw.
more »
marna in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
27 May 2010
I read about Mexicana over on this here cheese blog. and I thought that;
- it looked like congealed vomit
- it looked disgusting and
- I sorta wanted to try it.
And, lo! I stumbled across it today, and shamefully concealed it at the bottom of my shopping basket and so I can confirm that;
more »
marna in FT • 7 Comments
21 May 2010
I can't find a picture of this cheese anywhere. Here's a cute baby goat instead!
Brique de St Jean
A small goat’s cheese from France, bought from Mons
We have half a brick of this pale goat’s cheese. It’s covered in a velvety, slippery, cream-and-white Geotrichum-wrinkled rind (reminding co-cheese-scoffer Sarah of brain). Inside, it’s soft and white, chalky towards the centre and slippery and liquid underneath the rind.
It’s smooth, and melts quickly, slightly grainily, in my mouth. It’s wonderfully sweet and milky, a touch almondy, soft and comforting, with just the slightest hint of a green, bitter spinachy leafiness. Sarah takes huge snout-filling sniffs of this cheese’s delicate fragrance, and declares it the winner of the Best Smelling Cheese Award. more »
marna in FT /Pumpkin Publog • 1 Comment
30 April 2010
A washed rind cow’s cheese from Co Cork, Ireland, bought from Neal’s Yard Dairy.
We have a wedge of this – an old favourite of mine – for lunch. The crumbly rind is a pale peachy, biscuity orange, and the paste inside’s gloriously liquid and drippy, oozing out and making puddles on the paper.
The cheese is wonderfully smooth and silky, and it tastes salty, nutty, and caramel-ish sweet. There’s a hint of rancid butter, smidges of yeast and mushroom, and a bit of chewy pungent meatiness. But there’s a more delicate flavour underlying the typical hearty washed rind – a mysterious and delicate taste that reminds me of roses, and my cheese-eating chum of tangerines. The rind’s got a grittiness that makes me think of cheesecake base and digestive biscuit crumbs – and it’s in the rind that those mysterious floral notes come to the fore. It tastes of turkish delight and buttercups, kumquat rind and wild strawberries. These are fragile flavours. I’m impressed that they manage to stand out against the mighty, meaty pungency of Brevibacterium linens‘s washed rind sockish whiff, and I’m delighted with the unexpected – and delicious – contrast.
marna in FT /Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
21 April 2010
Paris is fantastic for the cheese-obsessed. It’s littered with cheese shops vending a huge variety of French cheeses (and a tiny smattering of imported ones).
Bleu d’Causses
This is a cow’s milk cousin of Roquefort, and it looks the part; a moist damp slab of cheese riddled with big greeny-grey pockets of mould. It might be a tad yellower than a Roquefort, but that’s the biggest difference in appearance.
It tastes spicy and salty and intense, numbing my mouth and ruining my tastebuds for the next cheese. The texture’s buttery and smooth. The rind tastes less fiercely blue, and is slightly pungent with unexpected peachy flavours.
FT’s very own Pete declares that it ‘tastes like Big Mac special sauce – in a good way’. (I, of course, have never tasted Big Mac special sauce.) more »
marna in FT /Pumpkin Publog • 2 Comments
9 April 2010
Isle of Mull cheddar
A hard unpasturised cows-milk cheese, bought from Neals Yard Dairy
This is a wedge of pale yellow cheese – much paler than other cheddars, I think. It’s slightly crumbly and has a pale-white-ish grey rind.
This is very civilised for a cheddar, and does not at all taste like it was brought up in a barn. The dense paste crumbles and melts easily, and there’s a lovely saltiness that reminds me of the sea; a result, I suspect, of this cheese’s island origins. It tastes sweet and floral, of fermenting fruit, with hints of pepper, and opens out to a salty tang and sweet nuttiness. The rind is thin and brittle, and tastes slightly bitter. Just underneath the rind it’s sweeter and incredibly mellow, and tastes of hazelenuts and cream.
and five bonus cheddars
I attended a talk, a few weeks ago, all about cheddar cheese. It was all-round fascinating, and now I know why parmesan crumbles and gouda bends. It is VERY EXCITING and if you mention it down the pub I’ll squawk on about it at great length.
We were all given little plates with wedges of cheese, to taste as we got to the relevant bits of the talk, and in true cheese-reviewing style I took notes as I nibbled. more »
marna in FT /Pumpkin Publog • 2 Comments
1 April 2010
A blend of cheese, milk products, and hydrogenated vegetable oil, made in Belgium, and bought from a local shop.
Busy with tiling the kitchen floor, I don’t have time to nip out to Borough market for today’s Cheesy Lover, and have to get my caesin fix from the corner shop.
My cheese comes exquisitely packaged in a bright blue wrapper, which tells me that it will be delicious on toast, with beans, or in a sarnie. My kitchen’s not quite functional – and anyway, I hate baked beans – so I tuck into it straight from the packet.
Inside the wrapper, there are five perfect cheese slices, each encased in their own plastic sleeves. The cheese inside’s a pale peachy-orange colour, and with a sticky texture – some of it comes away on my thumb when I press it. The aroma’s got a slight milky sweet-and-sourness. I tear off a corner of cheese – it’s pliable and sticky, like soft chocolate ganache, and quite difficult to handle, clinging to my fingers.
The cheese is soft and melts readily, coating my teeth and the roof of my mouth. It’s initially sweet, with a slight tang, and quickly develops into a sour-milk flavour. The other predominating taste is that of salt. The inital milky flavour dissipates very swiftly – before the paste clinging to the roof of my mouth has melted – but a chemical aftertaste lingers for some time afterwards.
marna in FT /Pumpkin Publog • 12 Comments
26 March 2010
A raw, hard cow’s milk cheese from Switzerland, bought from Mons.
When I was buying this cheese, I noticed the name of the cheese very prettily raised around the side of the wheel. I didn’t buy anywhere near a large enough wedge to get whole letter, but what I have is a slice of hard, pale yellow cheese, turning translucent towards the edges. The cheese has been rubbed with a twiggy, grassy herbal mixture, which makes the rind a greenish-brown.
The texture’s slightly crumbly, reasonably soft and pliant, and melts happily in my mouth. It’s got some of the sweet nuttiness of a Gruyere, tasting of toasted butter and sweet hazlenuts, as well as a bright yoghurty tang. Some combination of its herbal rubdown and alpine origins give it a lovely floral undertone, and a smidge of the warm, fresh dried-grass aroma of henna.
The rind is chewy, and feels slightly waxy. Despite the grassy covering, it doesn’t taste of very much. It’s not unpleasant to eat, but I’ll not tell anyone off for not eating the best bit if it’s left on the side of their plate.
marna in FT /Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
18 March 2010
A hard swiss cheese, bought from Kaseswiss
We have a slice of this pale yellow cheese. It’s got a dark brown rind, and is pitted with large holes; it looks like a classic comicbook wedge of cheese.
It has a crumbly, almost bready, texture. Initially, it’s very sweet, but turns fizzy and sour after a couple of moments, with a hint of green bitterness. It tastes nutty and rich, and there are sweet fudge notes underlying the sharp sour taste. The rind’s not so interesting; I think it’s chewy and tasteless. (Sidney the dog disagrees and scoffs the scraps, but she happily eats plastic and I think her judgement is suspect.)
The huge holes are fuzzed with little crunchy white grains, and are (I’m struggling to find a polite way to say this, I’m afraid) just the right size for me to stick my tongue inside them and lick them out. I’m rewarded with bright fruity pineapple flavours.
Co-cheese-scoffers P and K both think that tangy sour lemon is the dominant flavour in this cheese. I think it’s something sweeter – apples and pineapples.
marna in FT /Pumpkin Publog • 2 Comments
10 March 2010
Tymsboro
A raw-milk goats cheese from Somerset, bought from Neals Yard Dairy
This is a little pyramid of goaty goodness, covered in a fuzzy white mould and with a layer of dark grey-green ash peeking out from underneath it. Inside the cheese is soft, and white, turning liquid underneath the rind. This is fresh new-season SPRING goat cheese and this means BABY GOATS as well as delicious fresh goats cheese.
It’s a smooth cheese, very soft and fluffy and mousse-like. The rind has a bit of chewy, solid texture to it. It reminds me of banana skin (in texture, not taste!), and it contrasts with the softness of the curd inside. The curdy paste tastes fresh and salty. It’s got a pale nuttiness – macadamia and almond – and a sweet creamy flavour. There are lots of bright fresh fruity tastes; green apples, lemon, a hint of gooseberry. The rind’s a little more bitter and astringent, tasting slightly of straw and slightly of splinters. more »
marna in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
« Older
Newer »