The Musings Of The Consensus

 And now, for another round of cheese taste testing and my results. The first cheese I tried was goat log, a cylinder-shaped soft cheese log made of goat's milk. While the taste was not bad, it was VERY lactic and acidic, so if you want a mild cheese, this will not be your thing. Would be a good base for a cheese sauce though. The second cheese I tried is Calabro Ricotta. It is produced in the United States, but caters heavily to Italian customers, with its base in Connecticut. Like any true ricotta, this had a very soft and creamy texture and a mild flavor that makes it go well with practically any meal. My mother and grandmother practically inhaled theirs due to liking it that much. Be advised, ricotta is very soft and does not last long, so have a container to store it in and keep it well refrigerated. The last cheese, however, was the most interesting of all. It's another cheese like the Manchego I tried a while back, but where I found Manchego not fun for eating by itself ...

 I recently acquired two cheeses, one an American-made Italian style cheese, and the other a Swiss. I plan to go back to some of my more favored varieties of cheese in later posts, but I decided this month to still expand my horizons. And both of these cheeses will do that job just fine. Satori Bourbon BellVitano is an American Italian-style cheese, and as the name suggests, incorporates Bourbon, specifically Kentucky Bourbon. It's washed in the bourbon to incorporate the yeasty taste of the alcohol into the final flavor.  Now, I must admit, while this cheese tastes fine, and my fellow cheese tasters (mom and grandma) unanimously agreed on two things. One, it was better suited for being part of a dish than cooked in anything, and two, while the taste was a pleasant blend of Parmigiano and Swiss, the yeasty aftertaste of the bourbon was a bit strong for our liking.  As part of a meal, this would be a fine ingredient for a pasta dish. There is nowhere near enough alcohol to...

 I decided to get two cheeses on opposite ends of the texture scale: Smoked Mozzarella for the softer side, and Fiore Sardo for the harder. I've had several other Italian cheeses and regular Mozzarella, but I was intrigued by both of the cheeses above, hence this review. Fiore Sardo is a somewhat lesser-known cheese than other Pecorino (sheep) cheeses. The name stems from the original method of curdling the cheese via cardoon thistle flowers (much like how vinegar is an alternative source of curdling to rennet). Modern Fiore Sardo is however made using regular animal rennet. The original variety is said to date back to the Bronze Age, ergo this is a cheese with a very long historical pedigree. The name is, loosely translated, "Flower of Sardinia", since Fiore means flower and the Sardo is short for Sardinia. Legally, only Fiore Sardo can be sold outside of Italy, it has an alternative version of itself that is combined with cheese fly larvae, which is banned outside of It...

I was recommended this cheese by a native of Norway, and from the way they described it, I was interested. Did some research, was even more interested. Once I tried it, I was all "man, the rave reviews were ABSOLUTELY JUSTIFIED!" First, a little background. Gjetost (also called several other names depending on the variant like Brunost) is a national staple of Norway. It's made via the boiling of cheese whey with added cream until it goes below 80% fluid to solid ratio. The resulting cheese, with a very distinct sweet taste due to the caramelization of the cheese (which results in the brownish color due to the cooking of the milk sugars), is a very soft and spreadable cheese. This cheese is a common breakfast staple, going well with coffee, toast, pancakes/waffles, and can also be good for sandwiches or even a sweet snacking cheese by itself. Now, it can be made with cow's milk, but goat's milk is what most Norwegians would consider authentic. I managed to get so...

 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...

 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...

     To continue a trend from my last review, I went again for young, low-sodium (or at least far less sodium than my usual choices) and my mother and grandmother taste-tested some lemon ricotta, fresh cheddar cheese curds, and some young Parmigiano-Reggiano. Ricotta is an Italian classic dating back to the Bronze Age and a long staple of their cuisine. It comes from the word meaning "recooked", as it goes through at least two preparation phases that result in cooked, slightly sweet curd. It is also made from buffalo's milk as opposed to cow. We got some lemon-flavored Ricotta in a small puck (even resembling a rather large hockey puck), and it was a massive hit. We all found it was rather like cheesecake, and we unanimously considered it an ideal breakfast, dessert, or snack cheese. Bit expensive in large quantities, but it is rather low sodium and very sweet, hardly tastes like cheese at all, though the texture is unmistakably that of a cheese, albeit a very soft and ap...

 This review of cheese was prompted by my grandmother, who I wanted to invite to enjoy some cheese, but her requirements for a low-sodium diet for health reasons limited my options. Not to be deterred, I decided to find some low-sodium cheese she could enjoy. To that end, I purchased some Caciocavallo, lightly salted Mozzarella, and Paneer. Caciocavallo is a "pulled curd" cheese (also called pasta filata) of Italian origin. It's similar to provolone cheese in texture, though closer to mozzarella in taste. I ordered some very young caciocavallo, and I found it's a fairly soft cheese, with a hard outer rind. The rind is edible, but I recommend against it. My grandmother found it a very pleasant cheese, and my mother commented she considered it an excellent snacking cheese. If you want a gentle-tasting cheese with low salt but prefer something that isn't straight-up mozzarella, I'd certainly recommend this,  The Mozzarella I got was the OG Italian cheese, not the...

 It's been a while since my last cheese review, so let's make up for that, shall we? This time I ordered a pound each of Asiago Pressato, green waxed Irish Cheddar, and Pecorino Calabrese The first, Asiago Pressato, this was something I got Mom (my fellow taste tester) because she adores the softer cheeses. In fact, this cheese is a D.O.P.-protected cheese of Italian origin made with pasteurized cow's milk. It's a very, very young cheese, barely almost a month old, and very, very soft. This is a super gentle, buttery-tasting cheese that very easily melts on the tongue and hardly resembles her harder and drier Italian cousins like Asiago D'Allevo. Mom considered it the kind of cheese she'd both snack on and use in cheese dishes, and I would have to agree. Its storage life isn't as long as most other Italian cheeses, so be sure to store it promptly and finish it within a week or two after opening. The next cheese we tried could not have been more different. Ir...

 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 i...

 This month, I chose to go outside my usual selections for cheese and get some things outside my palate, just for variety. To that end, I got three cheeses, all of wildly different flavor profiles, and below are my reviews of them all Jarlsberg Jarlsberg is Norwegian cheese, trademarked in 1972. It's a Swiss-type cheese made from cow's milk. Its origins date back to the 1850's. It has "gas holes", the traditional eyes of Swiss-type cheeses due to propionic bacteria, a harmless bacterium used to culture the cheese, and causes the eyes due to the buildup of CO2. According to Murray's, it was sold as a mild, even mild fruity cheese, and in my and mother's taste testing, this is generally true, being very gentle and even slightly sweet for a Swiss-style cheese. It's a cheese I would easily recommend as a snack and cooking cheese, and I'm normally not a fan of Swiss cheese in general. This, however, is something even I'm going to concede is pleasant...

 For this month, Mom and I bring back another exciting episode of Dragon Ball- wait, wrong subject. Seriously, this month, we tasted some more cheese, ordered from Murray's in New York. Like always, it shipped well packed with adequate ice and it was undamaged and in good quality. Here's how our taste testing went. Grana Padono Oro 20 Months In my earlier post about Pecorino Romano, I mentioned that cheese is very gritty and grainy. Well, Grana Padono Oro, while a relative of that cheese, it goes through a different cooking process than Romano, resulting in a much less dry texture and it's more flaky than grainy. This is ironic, because "Grana" means "Grain". Grana Padono Oro is an Italian cheese that has enjoyed Denominazione d’Origine Protetta (Protected Designation of Origin) status since 1996. It's produced using raw cow milk from two separate milkings. This milk is then partially skimmed, the curd is given two cooking periods, then it's bath...

 I ordered some Halloumi with the Pecorino Romano I ordered not too long ago, didn't cook it at the time I wrote the other review. Now that I've done that, time for the actual review. First some history on this cheese. Halloumi is a sheep's milk cheese of Middle Eastern origin, specifically from Cyprus. It's typically stored in a salt brine, flavored with some mint, and typically served in slices or cubes, either fried or grilled. It's a cheese with a super low melting point, which is why you can put it on a skewer on the grill or pop slices into a pan to fry (no oil required) and cook it till it's browned, then eat. The stuff I bought was made with a non-animal based rennet, which is no problem for the flavor. Another fun thing is that while it can be eaten raw, it's best when cooked, mostly because you cook out the excess salt brine and the texture is far more agreeable. Still tastes good either way, though be advised it will "squeak" as you chew...

 Recently ordered some 12-month-old Pecorino Romano from Murray's, and before I get on to the taste testing, I want to cover some interesting history. For the Christians and Jews in the audience, this will cover topics relevant to religious history as well. First off, Pecorino (from Pecor, the word for sheep) Romano is a very time-honored Roman and now Italian cheese. It goes back over two thousand years in tradition and was written about by various Roman authors, such as Marcus Tertulius Varro and Hippocrates. Virgil also mentioned this cheese, specifically noting it was part of the rations given to the average Roman legionaire, at a rate of 1 Roman ounce (27-28 grams) per man. It was touted for it's keeping qualities, it's nutrients were considered ideal for health, and was favored both dry and fresh. Any Pecorino Romano over eight months old is considered suitable as a grating cheese and over five months as a fresh cheese. On the religious front, this cheese would have b...

 I recently purchased some cheese from Murray's, a specialty place in New York. I reviewed some of their yellow cheddar awhile back, and I decided to splurge and ordered three more cheeses from them, this will be a breakdown of how the taste testing of the three went. NEW YORK STATE WHITE CHEDDAR 6 MONTHS I bought this cheese per request of my mother, who volunteered to be my fellow cheese tester, as it's a beloved taste from her childhood. We both tried a sample of it neat (we did this for all three to get the most unbiased opinion), and I found it very tangy and creamy, but not so tangy it didn't have a nice counter note of sweetness to knock the edge off. My mother found it especially smooth in texture and we both enjoyed savoring the flavor on the way down. Since I bought extra for her to use for cooking, she definitely intends to make some macaroni and cheese with it (fun fact, Thomas Jefferson came up with mac and cheese), and I for one will be a willing eater at that...

 I recently, because I wanted to try better cheese than is usually shipped via the supermarket, ordered some New York Cheddar from an outfit called Murray's. Now, I only ordered a pound, so I got two 0.5lb hand-sized blocks of cheese, which is fair. Murray's promised the cheese would be well preserved and fresh on arrival, and thanks to good packaging, included ice packs, and having the cheese wrapped securely in cheese paper, they were as good as their word. Now, here is my review of the cheese: First off, this is not a very good "sandwich cheese, it's fairly hard and is not going to slice evenly, but I'm the type who can eat my cheese neat, so that's not a problem. It's a good dinner plate cheese, and complements various dinner meats, and goes well with beverages like some red wine if you'd like to enjoy a classy vintage with the cheese. As for taste, it's hard but not tough to chew. It has a really zesty tang to it, definitely is a lot more disti...

 Now, this is gonna be weird, because it's about food, a subject I don't usually discuss, but because I was reading about the history of cheese recently, I figured I might share this, as it's both an opportunity to vent my spleen about something I don't like and a chance to inform the public on something. First off, my dislike of American processed cheese does not mean I do not recognize its value. It's commonly used in various products like cheeseburgers in restaurants because it is very good for cooking purposes. Nor do I think the invention itself was a bad one, I just don't prefer it. That said, let me explain a bit about the history of said cheese. The inventor was James Kraft, the same guy whose last name you might be familiar with who created the Kraft Foods company, and the product Kraft's Macaroni and Cheese. Now, Kraft made process cheese as a way to make a common form of cheese that would be easily made in large batches and easily preserved. Not a...