Review of some Italian and Gouda Cheeses

 It's been awhile since I and my mother got some cheese to review, but we recently sampled four different types of cheese, two of Italian extraction, two being wildly different Gouda-style cheeses.

First, let's start with the cheese I got free thanks to my regular cheesemonger Murray's tossing it in free with my order. That being a Parmigiano-Reggiano, aka that cheese most people have put on their Italian dishes in powder format.

I got a fresh if aged by 5 years slice of said cheese, and the taste in general is not much different from the powdered variety. Like the powdered version, it is a raw cow's milk cheese given a protracted aging process and made with a high density of salt to promote the flavor of Parmesan-style cheese most are familiar with. However, in its fresh state, it lacks much of that concentrated tanginess the powdered, condensed variety often has, while still retaining a gentler flavor despite being a hard cheese. If you want to have Parmesan without it being super tangy and dry as a bone, it goes great with meals, as a snack, or can be crumbled atop your Italian dishes as a fresher alternative to it's dry, powdered version.

The other Italian cheese we tried was SarVecchio Satori. Despite the name, it's actually made in Wisconsin, not Italy, though it's heavily steeped in the same processes as Italian-made Asiago-style cheeses. It's made from pasteurized cow's milk and around 2 years old worth of aging.

As far as I'm concerned, where I didn't like the dry, unrelenting grit of Asagio d'Allevo, this had a similar flavor profile but was far less dried out and more pleasant to chew and savor. My mother noted it was quite salty, as Asagio and Grana style cheese tend towards, and both of us concur it's best served as part of a meal and only usable as a snacking cheese in small portions at best.

The Goudas I got are practically polar opposites of each other, and I'll cover the milder of the two first.

Honey Goat Gouda is a super approachable, creamy even by Gouda standards pasteurized goat milk cheese. With an age of 6 months, it is very soft and not at all hard to eat. It's a farmstead cheese from Holland and its name comes from the infusion of honey into the flavor profile.

To be frank, this is the creamiest, sweetest cheese you are likely to eat that isn't the consistency of flat-out cream cheese, and it's perfect as a snack cheese and very sweet and gentle to the taste. As a washed rind cheese, it's strongly lacking in an acidic taste profile, practically the polar opposite. If I had to rate the various Goudas I've tried, this is at the far end of the shallow end in terms of taste when it comes to tanginess. Both I and my mother enjoyed this one immensely.

Noord Hollander Gouda is basically the Mirror Universe doppelganger of the first one I mentioned. It's pasteurized cow's milk cheese aged to around 4 years, which is pretty long by Gouda standards. It's a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) cheese specific to the Noord-Holland region. It's a washed rind cheese like the Honey Goat Gouda, but since it's aged a lot longer, it develops an acidic flavor profile as it ages instead of having one earlier on. This makes it have quite the adventurous and tangy flavor profile.

My mother commented it's like if Parmesan was made by Gouda cheesemakers to be as tangy and flavorful as possible, and I can't disagree. It still retains a high amount of the traditional creaminess of Gouda, but this not a cheese that is so gentle on the tongue you can snack on it without getting a lot of flavor as you savor. It can be snacked on if you want something adventurous by Gouda standards, but it's best paired with a meal or as a cooking cheese if you want dilute some of the tang while still enjoying the taste.