This cheese is an old friend and favourite of mine, and I’m not sure why it’s taken me this long to get around to mentioning it here. We snaffle a wedge of it for lunch. It’s pale and crumbly in the centre, chalkily opaque, and coloured a gentle primrose primrose-yellow. Under the rind the curd has broken down and formed a soft, slightly sticky, darker translucent layer. The rind itself is a mottled brownish grey, musty, dark and dusty.
The chalky centre of the cheese crumbles away to nothing in my mouth. Light and fluffy, it’s almost mousse-like; cloudy, airy and insubstatial. It tastes tangy and fresh and sparkling bright; of sherbert, butter and yoghurt. Under the rind, where the cheese has broken down, the butteriness is more intense. It’s saltier here, and smooth, tasting a little bit like a toffee sauce, and a little bit like mushrooms.
The rind looks damp and dark and musty, and it tastes that way too. It tastes of damp earth and minerals, reminding me of compost, leaf mould, undergrowth and damp garden sheds. This is delicious – do not fear the damp, dank rind. It’s one of the best bits.
When I am attempting to be civilised – i.e. not simply breaking chunks off the wedge of cheese and eating them gleefully from my fingers – this cheese is fantastic in a fresh baguette, with a scraping of butter, salted slices of ripe tomatoes, and a smidgen of pepper scattered over it all. I usually eat it straight from the paper, like the savage that I am.