Rolling cheeses 2018

xp to tracer
Yes! Maybe even more normal than sports, since the academic types I spend most of my time with don't care about sports (except their own activities). And by contrast, when I talk to the people at cheese shops, they want to talk philosophy with me.

One of my academic colleagues invited me to his family's cheese farm in the Cantal a few years ago, where his cousin walked us through their facilities, all very low key. And we ate lots of cantal and salers (my second favorite cheeses after fourme d'ambert). I seriously dream of having a summer home in the Auvergne just so I can have ready access to their cheeses, whose best iterations don't make it to the capital.

xpost Yeah, I want people to drink and eat what they like, but I get a tad annoyed when they shy away from learning more about wine and cheese. Especially now, when there is so much good, interesting wine and cheese for affordable prices, it really should not have that marker of snobbiness.

xpost - they have more cheese here than that list but it's all nothing to fall down the stairs about. I've asked Chileans and international people (french, italian) who have been living here longer than me about the cheese situation, they are like, don't bother. I mean you can get President's brie etc but it's not the same.

http://cdn.ipernity.com/133/12/39/30851239.2ce76d59.640.jpg?r2

iirc white cheddar cheez-its are among the necessities we ask for visiting americans to bring us

lol @ "Colby" cheese wtf even was that

Colby is softer, moister, and milder than cheddar

Colby is not aged and dries out quickly

greaaat

"milder than cheddar" is quite the achievement

absolutely nothing personal but when I see people insisting that Cheddar is the best cheese I want them denied of cheese for life (I suppose this is kind of already happening so it's not a particularly heinous wish)

there was a 'favourite cheese' thread on my soccer messageboard and it was just cheddar cheddar cheddar all the way down. i'm cool with a bit of culinary conservatism but this is some swagger-of-oasis shit

stilton otoh is the pride of fucking england

several x-ps to yerac: yes i felt that putting "gauda" as one of the four chilean cheeses suggested they were reaching

(apparently its's not very like actual real gouda tho, plus local legend has it that it's made of potatoes) (except sadly it isn't)

although by far the best english cheese imo is somerset tor goats cheese - a genuine marvel and the best goats cheese i've ever had

I just double checked the deal with Chilean cheese. Most milk sold in Chile is long life milk (ultra high processing); it's super hard to find fresh milk. Thus all the dairy products are pretty dire.

xpost yeah Gauda in the supermarkets threw me for awhile until I realized it was not in fact gouda.

xpost I really like a sharp cheddar. If you live for eggs, sandwiches, mac and cheese, I can see why that may be your favorite staple.

stilton is amazing. one of my local cheese shops has what seems to be a careful selection of british cheeses, I need to get better acquainted with those before brexit

agree that cheddar is overrated but when you get a really good cheddar it can be incredible

It's a staple and if you get a really good one it's the best. But I see we're ILM already so

cheddar works well molten, in things that require molten cheese, but even then, let alone in its natural state, I can't think of any scenario where I wouldn't replace it with something else that's readily available in any supermarket. also something something Turrican something The Boo Radleys something POX

i only really like it for cooking (inc. toasted cheese)

I try a lot of cheeses for omelettes. Cheddar is by far the desert island winner.

Next time I am in the London, I should do more British cheese studies.

cheddar is basically unknown and unavailable most places in france but if you get a good one french people ime are very positive about it

i've said it before but the worst cheddar available in yr standard british supermarket is better than the best cheddar available in yr standard american supermarket

the cornish cruncher cheddar currently available in m&s is so good

the worst cheddar available in yr standard british supermarket is better than the best cheddar available in yr standard american supermarket

this is quite a frightening thought tbh

The last time I was in France I was pouring raclette over my eggs. Because I just realized I could heat it up in the pan.

I posted my five favourite cheeses on Facebook and iirc:

1. Parmesan
2. Beaufort and other gruyere derivatives such as Comté (Beaufort is my favourite tho)
3. local artisan semi-firm sheep's milk cheese that you get at the farmer's market and they've wrapped in ash or something
4. Buffalo Mozzerella
5. Serra di Estrela (big fan, but from afar, as I can't find any worth the hype outside of Portugal)
6. Cheddar I guess

I've started to realize that Parmesan (or Parmeggiano-Reggiano or whatever you call it) is so good that lately while other people are eating chips while we play Mario Party 3 I'm dipping into the kitchen every 20 minutes to get myself a slice and nibble on it with my front teeth, savouring the little crystals within

yeah thin slices of Parmesan are right up there

It's the only cheese that really, actually smells like feet and yet one of the tastiest (no tarantino)

yeah I love being in Italy & just buying the little morceaux of parmesan or grano padano & eating them like potato chips

I wish there was a fasting diet where you just have a parmesan nibble every 2-3 hours. I could do that.

the worst cheddar available in yr standard british supermarket is better than the best cheddar available in yr standard american supermarket

imported British and Irish cheddars (Mull of Kintyre, Kerrygold, Collier's) are pretty common in American supermarkets. is it fair to assume that these cheeses are unfit for Britisher/Irisher consumption, in the same way that the "ethic American" sections in UK supermarkets are stocked with Fluff and Twinkies and other sugary bullshit that no cultured American would touch?

possibly! i can only recall seeing kerrygold butter in the uk tbh

vermont cheddars - really good ones, aged, raw milk -- are all over the place too

i have really amazing memories of Cabot cheddar and when i tried it recently after having spent several years in the UK i was like wtf is this

Cabot is the Velveeta of Vermont cheddars! but this stuff is pretty good despite the embarrassing packaging:

https://i.imgur.com/O4SBq2W.png

what do you think of grafton village is it good or just artisanal kraft?

I like it, but the sharpness is maybe a little over-the-top, and it isn't significantly better than other supermarket cheddars that sell for $3-4 less per pound. but I'm not a cheese connoisseur so ymmv

ymmc

^

putting a picture of a person on a packet of cheese has uh troubling implications imo

ball cheese

Ilxor L4uren introduced me to pimento cheese about 3 years ago. Delicious.

Granted, I have only had it from Murray's cheese, but I assume you can't mess it up too bad.

where is the love for babybel

Love pimento cheese. Love Comte and other gruyere family members. Love British cheddars and Stilton of various official and unofficial varieties. Love pretty much all cheese, but try to eat less of it these days, as I don't buy the saturated fat is good for you stuff.

Despair at American unfamiliarity with cheese better than generic "sharp cheddar" or "manchego" etc.

Would be interesting to know more about why the dairy-producing/cheese-eating regions of the US came to be such.

Yep, I've been eating less cheese and drinking less wine this year, since I was on the Trump diet last year. Eating and drinking everything in sight in preparation for a nuclear winter and to feed my huge hole of despair.

first cheese that ever became my fave was Brin d'amour which i haven't seen in ~15 years - released in Spring, semisoft Ewe's milk, and rind coated in herbes de provence iirc. that was beautiful stuff. shoutout to manchego for versatility and flavor, but these days i love 'em all, esp. 5-year aged gouda is special in the crystalized-bits way fgti was talking about Parmeggiano-Reggiano. and hell yeah to all the blues, and Britishes (looking @ you double gloucester). feel like i live in a cheese desert now and i don't like it

I love Babybel

I love this Canadian cheese called Oka, made on Oka Island, the rind is the best part

I love pimento cheese

Love British cheddars and stiltons

Keep your manchego tho thanks

manchego in Spain can be great but in north america the instances I've had have often been too waxy

but Idiazábal ! we're planning a trip to the spanish basque country for the summer & naturally this'll be a highlight.

chez nous our favorite of that style is tomme brulée, from the Pyrenees, also a basque cheese, but French.

is burrata better than buffalo mozzarella y/n

sometimes i think y

YES!

You are clearly more of a romantic than Tracer Hand

Made pimento cheese this past weekend. I want to spread it everywhere, so delicious.

this post lacks the sophistication of much of this thread but -- had comté i think for the first time and dear god.

It was good? Yesterday, I finally took out the st nectaire I had in the freezer from my last trip to France in July. Still delicious.

yeah thin slices of Parmesan are right up there

― Under the influence of the Ranters (Noodle Vague), Friday, 2 March 2018 16:56 (eight months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's the only cheese that really, actually smells like feet and yet one of the tastiest (no tarantino)

― scotti pruitti (wins), Friday, 2 March 2018 16:59 (eight months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ah here gruyere absolutely smells like feet, possible not even human feet like

would have it above cheddar on most omelettes/gratins tho, notwithstanding yerac being correct about cheddar being best with eggs and in sandwiches as a rule

xp I loved it. It was 15 month something or other that I bought a square centimeter of. There is something different there compared to the gruyure I've had. Most painful part was realizing I had stayed in France outside of geneva in grad school for a conference. Was so close to comté bliss but too poor and ignorant.

I need new french cheeses to try. Maybe one day I will finally get the Mont D'or. Problematic when I have to eat the entire thing myself.

You probably already know all the main ones so I don’t know what to suggest. Chèvre, vache ou brebis ?

i just learned the word for sheep, so thx!

I should just blindly choose a couple.

oh, yum
https://www.murrayscheese.com/pyrenees-brebis

holy cow. ought not to have gone to that website cuz now i feel like my life with be empty without https://www.murrayscheese.com/white-truffle-moliterno

My favorite cheeses in the world are the sheeps milk cheeses from the Pyrenees. Petit Basque is incredible; there is this rich mouthfeel that is so good. Ossau-Iraty and Prince de Clavarolle are amazing. Etorki is slightly less aged and not as good Imo, but still well worth it.

if you go to the Pyrenees the little cheese stalls you find will often just sell "Pyrenees" cheese, usually brebis as you say, though there is some vache - often with no actual names attached so you never quite know what you're going to get but yes it's pretty much 100% awesome

The above are all very similar so I wouldn't get them at the same time.

I just got over a years long cheese addiction: snacking on 2-3 amazing cheeses every evening while preparing dinner. Finally had to quit that to get myself in order.

Alp Blossom is a great US alpine style cow-milk cheese coated in herbs.

Some of the best cheeses I ever had were St. Malachi and Seven Sisters from The Farm at Doe Run in SE Pennsylvania. My Whole Foods only carried them for a short while and they are very expensive to order by mail.

xp

I think I am going to make one of these cheese plates soon. Although I will have be more thoughtful about keeping meats away with some sort of wall.

https://www.instagram.com/cheesebynumbers/

mm meat wall

I had to put a bunch of st nectaire in my gnocchi to use it up. It was lovely and decadent.

Oh! Am not a big gnocchi person but I love melting some gorgonzola with a bit of pasta cooking water for a quick, yum, fat-laden noodle dish

I was very happy all my cheeses made it through customs. I've only had them one time start looking for the word pasteurized on the labels and it was after the customs dog sniffed out the cheese.

Blue cheese help please.

I bought an Italian blue rolled in coffee at Christmas and it's theoretically sensational except for the fact it's just too strong, even for my tastes.

I'm absolutely at the stage of just throwing it out unless anybody has any ideas for how to temper it that don't involve blue cheese dip.

salad dressing? i love a blue cheese dressing on endives

or dressing for the classic winter green-apple/spinach/walnut/bacon salad (or is this just a classic in my own head - i dunno)

It would need to be a *really* dilute dressing to overcome it. Honestly, if I opened the box I'm storing it in you could probably smell it at your place just now.

I'm thinking more about granny's tales like "keep it in a box for a week with half a turnip" or "two drops of vanilla essence on a slice of stale bread, turned to breadcrumbs".

the funkier the blue cheese the better the dressing ime

Pair it with something really sweet and fruity, like fig jam?

Fondue (jk)

I like putting honey on a real strong blue cheese

Seem like sensible ideas but it's way beyond that.

Sod it, bin. I just hate throwing food out.

cook some pasta, and to the hot pot throw in a dollop of this blue as it melts add butter/olive oil until it seems not too overpowering and use as cream sauce for pasta?

once the pasta is drained, add to the hot pot, is more what i meant to say

Already tried that without luck.