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Dec 09
Picos de Europa & Tetilla (cheesy lovers #46 & #47)
It’s almost exactly six months since I posted the first of these cheesy writeups, and cheese # 50 is coming up later this week. Either of these things would be a good excuse for a celebration. Both together most definitely are! Clearly, the way to celebrate having eaten FIFTY cheeses is to eat some more cheese, no? I’ve yet to figure out the minor details of this. (Or, actually, anything beyond NYOM NYOM eat more cheese.) Does anyone have any clever suggestions?
Picos de Europa, Valdeón
Mixed cow and goat blue cheese, from Spain, bought from Brindisa
A blue beast mashup cheese! I find this very exciting. My wedge of this cheese has a pale orange bloomy rind, and pale cream paste with a generous sprinkling of green powdery mould. It tastes bitter, and cocoa-powderish. It’s reasonably salty, slightly sour and lemony. Towards the rind the veining is less intense, and it tastes sweeter; creamy, smooth and with a hint of almonds. The sweetness here is a good contrast to the bitter saltiness of the centre of the cheese. This isn’t such an intense blue that my mouth hurts, but not is it a huggy mellow sort of cheese; it’s too bitter and spiky for that.
Tetilla
Soft-ish pasturised cow cheese, from Spain, bought from Brindisa
Tetilla is Spanish for breast, says the internet. Google image search agrees, at least if you have safe-search switched off. Oops! This is a slice of a rounded conical cheese. It’s hard on the outside, and softer and oozy inside, scattered with tiny holes. It tastes very creamy and buttery, with a big initial whomph of alcoholic pineapple, and a slight lingering sourness. The cheese gets harder towards the rind, which is chewy and comparitively tasteless, but is strangely very pleasant to eat.
You could try fifty different wines/ports to go with yr cheese?
All at once?
Make fondue out of your favourite ones so far!
Throw a big CHEESE PARTY? I’d come, but I probably couldn’t bring 50 bottles of wine, so maybe my first suggestion was a bit hopeful (or the start of a neu projekt).
How about a SMALL cheese party? I was sorta thinking that it might be fun to have a tasting, and try to pair beers or wine (but prob not both at once) to some cheese and talk about them and stuff. Would that be too boring, though? I think it would be more interesting than just letting loose the hordes of savages on a table of cheese, but I am v geeky about this.
(also, neu cats come to live with me at the weekend, so I should hold off on having big parties for a while and let them settle in, so only small and civilised gatherings can happen at my house)
Any event that involves (i) cheese; (ii) beer; (iii) wine, cannot by its very definition be BORING. And anyone on FT who might disagree with this is clearly 1x fule.
Oh I have just had the BEST IDEA EVER. We need CHEESE COCKTAILS!
Right, you know how delicious a dirty martini is? I was thinking about making dirty mozzarella martinis, with mozzarella juice instead of olive brine, and little liquid mozzarella balls made from the recipe in the El Bulli book, in place of olives. I know all our previous attempts at spherification have failed, but I remain ever an optimist.
I’m not the only person who likes to drink mozzarella juice, am I?
sukrat five years ahead of all time: why oh why are there no cheese based liqueurs?
This is the cheesiest cocktail I can find on the internets.
I drink Mozzarella Jizz. And would happily participate in trying to invent cheese cocktails.
Tetila is Galician specifically, I think. We had some in coruna, preferable to manchego to me, which I find a bit dry…
congratulations on reaching 50 cheeses – I once thought I might try each of your recommendations but have fallen so far behind I can’t imagine ever catching up.
I think you should award yourself the title of Fromagier – perhaps with a sash or judo style belt. As you advance through the worlds cheeses you can upgrade to a new level until you meet the Boss cheese…no, wait, I’m getting mixed up…
Here’s a profile of what it takes to be a Fromagier, I think you are well on the way to meeting this criteria:
http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-Become-a-Fromagier-in-California-207694572
BTW although I can’t say I’m thrilled at the thought of Mozzerella Juice I must confess a love for Gherkin Brine – if they bottled that I would buy it in a flash.
As discussed in the pub earlier: a normal martini but with a mini Cheddar wedged on the rim of the glass…
hello
I am very glad to find this place
photo