Posts

Showing posts from September, 2024

Butterkäse and my observations

 This is going to be a short blog, but it's on a cheese I've long wanted to try and my sister again came in for the clutch and managed to find it for me. Without further ado, let's cover the first German cheese on my cheese-tasting journey, Butterkäse. Butterkäse ( pronounced as "boo-ter-kay-zuh" ) is a German semi-soft pasteurized cow milk cheese. Literally meaning "butter cheese" (because of its taste and texture being very butter-like) and "ladies cheese" (due to its very mild taste and appearance), this is a cheese of wide renown in Germany and Austria, and American cheesemongers in Wisconsin are also known to make their own. Here are some facts before I begin the taste testing. First off, this is a young cheese aged about a month at most with a high degree of milk fat. While it is made from the curd and the whey is drained off in the process, there is little attempt to drain any and all moisture from the curd, meaning the curd remains soft

Red and Piave Cheese, my taste testing

 I would like to dedicate my latest cheese-tasting blog to my sister, who was gracious enough to see about procuring the cheese I tested for this review from her local cheesemonger and sending some my way. This is not going to be an overly long post, as I only tasted two new varieties, but both are fairly unique and deserve some discussion. The first cheese I tasted was Westminister Rustic Red Cheddar. Red cheddar is a bit interesting in that its creation was the result of a happy accident. Specifically, it was originally created by the accidental mixture of Lactobacillus helveticus starter culture into what was meant to be a cheddar cheese. This starter culture is commonly used in Swiss and Emmental-style cheese, so the original cheesemaker was worried it would taste terrible. To their pleasant surprise, the final product tasted great. As the name suggests, it's distinctly dark orange-red in color. The texture is similar to cheddar but more crumbly like an Italian hard cheese. The