What a Friend We Have in Cheeses

Setting out a Generous Supply of cheese is one of the friendliest gestures a thoughtful host can make. Hospitality is of minor consequence to a true cheese freak, however; only one thing really counts—le goût—the vast gamut of tastes ranging from a silky triple-crème belletoile to aggressively fragrant livarots and limburgers. No one knows how, where or by whom cheese was originally conceived. But, like the daredevil who first swallowed an oyster, he was a brave man who first ate cheese. Anthropologists place its origin back some 11,000 years, give or take a century, soon after the domestication of milk-producing animals. Refrigerators being hard to come by, cheese was the only way to (continued on page 218) Cheeses (continued from page 127) preserve and transport the perishable product. Word must have got around, because that primitive cheese has begot a staggering array of offspring. They come in all shapes, sizes, hues, tastes and smells—made from the milk of cows, ewes, goats, yaks, buffaloes, mares, reindeer, camels and even donkeys.

Cheese names sound a roll call of gustatory delight, as varied in origin as they are in taste. Many, such as edam, emmentaler, gorgonzola and bleu de bresse, honor the town or area from which they come. Others, including stilton and limburger, call attention to the place where they became renowned. La grappe and kümmelkäse take their names from an added ingredient; brick and pineapple, from their shape. Monterey jack and petit suisse pay tribute to those who helped originate them—respectively, David Jacks and the little Swiss herder who suggested adding an extra measure of cream to the mix. Liederkranz celebrates Liederkranz Hall, where a choral society sampled the prototype and demanded encores.

It's estimated that there are about 2000 cheeses in the world, counting minor local variations. Exploring this tantalizing profusion can be as much of an adventure as learning about wine. Cheeses exist for every taste, every purpose, and the fun is to discover those you like. The United States Department of Agriculture classifies this gastronomic trove into 18 distinct types of natural cheese, according to technicalities of production. A breakdown into six family groups based on similar sensory traits makes more sense and is definitely more enlightening.

[recipe_title]Crème Cheeses[/recipe_title]

The richest and most delicate cheeses are the crèmes and gournays—smooth and velvety, ranging from clotted cream to semifirm in texture. Crème types are meant to be consumed quickly. The uncured often have a refreshing tart undertone, because they're coagulated by lactic acid. The cured are lightly fragrant, occasionally blended with herbs and spices. Belletoile, a ravishing triple crème called the millionaire's brie, comes either mildly ripened or unripened—laced with herbs and garlic or pepper. It's an excellent cocktail cheese. Petit suisse is an uncured double-crème type that eats like whipped cream. Try it over ripe strawberries, topped with brown sugar. Tartare, boursin, boursault and caboc (rolled in oat flakes) are others in the cream family. There's also montrachet, a rich, creamy uncured goat cheese. And don't dismiss the native American cream cheese, a gournay type that rates with any of its kind in the world.

(If your favorite French or Italian cheese doesn't taste quite the same at home as you remember it did abroad, there's a reason. The taleggio you ate in Italy was a raw-milk product. But Federal law requires that imported cheeses either be made from pasteurized milk or be aged 60 days. The softer imports, therefore, are made from pasteurized milk, which affects the rate of curing and, according to some, the flavor.)

[recipe_title]Soft-Ripened Cheeses[/recipe_title]

Our most familiar gourmet cheeses are those in the soft-ripened family—brie, camembert, coulommiers and dozens more. They are generally small and ripen quickly after being rubbed or inoculated with a curing agent. Ripening progresses from the outside in and ceases when the crust is cut, so be attentive and patient. If the exterior is white, the cheese will probably be waxy and bland. A fully ripe brie is soft to the touch and shows reddish-tan mottlings on the chalky crust. The inside will be lustrous, pale yellow and will have the consistency of cold honey. A slightly depressed crust and ammonial odor suggest that the cheese is past its prime and should be shunned. Brie de meaux and brie de melun are good names in brie and consistently dependable.

Coulommiers, a smaller, satiny brie type with a hint of hazelnuts in its flavor, is gaining adherents. So are the rich, oval-shaped caprice des dieux and purecrem—extra-cream camembert types. Crema danica is silky, mild and pleasant but lacks real distinction. To answer the universal question, crusts are edible, but the option is with the eater. The French usually gobble them up.

Soft cheeses go well with fruit. For a blissful, light summer luncheon, it's hard to improve on a runny brie with ripe Cornice or Bartlett pears. Brie also makes a party spectacular with very little fuss. Get a ripe, oozy brie and brush the top to remove loose particles. Spread lightly with sweet butter, then coat generously with chopped toasted almonds. Outasight!

For a more intimate occasion, try this unusual way to serve vacherin mont d'or or ripe camembert. Chill thoroughly, then remove top crust, leaving the remaining crust as a bowl. Sprinkle with caraway seeds and bake until heated through. To eat, scoop out cheese with teaspoons and spread on plain crackers, bread or apple slices.

While there's room for debate, limburger and Liederkranz seem to fit in the soft-ripened group rather than the semisoft category. Some people can't get past the smell, but both are robust, satisfying cheeses. Just keep them refrigerated and tightly sealed when not in use.

[recipe_title]Semisoft Cheeses[/recipe_title]

One treads on holy ground when entering the realm of semisoft cheeses. The most renowned of the breed, port du salut, was originated by Trappist monks. Indeed, the name translates as "port of salvation" and commemorates the monks' return to France in 1815, after a period of exile. Today, port-du-salut types are made in Europe, Canada, United States and other countries. A Danish port-du-salut type, esrom, is quite full-flavored and resilient and is a good value.

Others in the large semisoft family are pont l'évêque, livarot, maroilles, royaldieue, bel paese, tomme de savoie, the Portuguese goat- or sheep-milk cheese queijo de serra and the American products, brick, baronet and monterey jack. Teleme, originally from the Balkans, is favored in California as a breakfast cheese, on toasted English muffins. (If you have difficulty locating good jack or teleme, The Cheese Factory, 830 Main Street, Pleasanton, California, will ship. They also make a savory salame cheese that combines jack and chips of Italian salami.)

All these cheeses are fairly mild to robust in aroma, intensifying with age, as is the usual case. They're supple, butterywaxy, and should yield to finger pressure at room temperature.

Semisoft cheeses go well with bread and beer. Soft pastes star on a cheese board, complement fruit handsomely and are equally tasty as snacks and desserts. A suave, slightly nutty reblochon or a rich, pungent delicado rahmkäse served with crackers and a glass of chilled amontillado, can turn a rainy fall afternoon into a painting by Renoir.

Soft-ripened and semisoft cheeses should be eaten at room temperature, but should be stored in the refrigerator. Remove a half hour to one hour before serving. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap or foil for storing. If you're buying a whole small cheese, check to see that it isn't shrunk, sweaty or discolored. Cut pieces should be au point; they will ripen no further. If mold appears, just cut it away. The remaining cheese is palatable.

[recipe_title]Firm Cheeses[/recipe_title]

There's a gargantuan group of fairly solid, well-flavored cheeses between the semisoft and the very-hard designations. For want of a better name, they're classed as firm. Firm cheeses are generally bacteria cultured and they ripen all over simultaneously. Ripening continues as long as the temperature is favorable, so longer aging thus produces a bigger, zestier flavor. A subgroup of the firm family forms "eyes" when ripening. The foremost representative is emmentaler (from the Emme Valley), generally called Swiss cheese in this country. Ripe emmentaler is somewhat elastic and sweetly nutty. It's beautiful with smoked salmon on black bread or melted on a hamburger instead of American cheese. The Swiss prefer their emmentaler about a year old, but they ship it aged from 60 days to six months to the United States and at various stages of aging to other parts of the world, depending on local tastes.

Natural gruyère, not to be confused with the foil-wrapped, triangular processed cheese, is another Swiss type. It's a bit sharper, nuttier and firmer than emmentaler and the eyes are smaller. White wine is occasionally rubbed in to intensify the flavor.

Emmentaler, gruyère and white wine are combined in the traditional recipe for Swiss fondue. A more interesting fondue can be made with gruyère and Italian fontina from Aosta. Fontina is rich, nutty and brown-crusted, resembling an oversized cheesecake. It's unusually subtle and pleasing, combining the tang of gruyère with a whisper of port du salut and an undertone of butternut. Fontinas are made in many places, but none equal that of the Valle d'Aosta.

Holland's fraternal twins, edam and gouda, rank high among the firms. They're almost identical, edam containing a slightly lower proportion of butterfat and a slightly higher amount of protein. That's the reason edam is able to hold its droll cannonball shape while curing. Provolone and caciocavallo from Italy are similar, but provolone is smoked. For full ripe aroma, there's tilsiter from Germany and Denmark. The Greek gift is feta, a piquant cheese, kept moist in brine. Mimolette from France is fairly new on the American scene. It is roundish, orange-colored, resembling both cheddar and edam, with a mild sharpness.

Cheddar is, of course, the most familiar of the eyeless firm types. The cheese takes its name from the English town of Cheddar and from a critical step in the manufacturing process. Curds are packed against the sides of the vat and then trenched, to drain the whey. When the curd particles adhere and form a mass, it is sliced, stacked and restacked until most of the whey is expelled. The stacking technique, called cheddaring, accounts for the characteristic fairly close, flaky-crumbly cheddar body. Fine cheddars crumble rather than paste when rubbed between the fingers. Commercial buyers look for a minimum of small openings and want those to be roughly triangular, not circular. Early summer cheddars made from the milk of grazing cows are said to be best. Although some are marketed as young as two months, good cheddar deserves at least five or six to develop. Aging beyond 18 months, however, tends to be counterproductive. English, Canadian and American cheddars are all excellent and there's not much to choose among them. New York State Mohawk Valley and Herkimer County raw-milk cheddars or Wisconsin pippin also don't suffer by comparison. Colby, of American origin, is similar to cheddar, though milder and not as dense. Other cheddar-like cheeses, developed in the United States, are pineapple, tillamook, longhorn, cooper and the sharp, crumbly coon.

Cheshire is blander and more open than cheddar, with a distinctive salty nip derived from the local salt-marsh pasture, once covered by the sea. Dr. Samuel Johnson was a Cheshire aficionado, usually ordering it at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub. You can have it yourself, at the same establishment, next time you're in London.

Perhaps the best English melting cheese is lancashire—white, smooth, loose-textured and clean-tasting. It is probably the one Ben Gunn dreamed about, "toasted, mostly," in Treasure Island.

Most firm cheeses keep well in a cool place such as a root cellar but require refrigeration in an apartment. Chunks hold up much better than slices. They should be eaten at room temperature, of course. If you buy a large chunk or a small wheel, it may be convenient to keep a small quantity under a cheese bell in a cool place. Wrap the balance tightly in plastic wrap or foil, to keep it from drying out. Cheeses kept at room temperature for a while may soften or exude fat. They are not spoiled. Just wipe lightly and refrigerate. Any mold that appears may be scraped away. An old home remedy suggests wiping with a damp cloth wrung out of vinegar, to retard mold development.

[recipe_title]Blue-Veined Cheeses[/recipe_title]

Blue cheeses are mainly firm and could be listed with that family. But there are so many—more than 50 types sharing the distinctive blue marbling—that we've grouped them under a separate heading. Blues are piquant, peppery, spicy and often salty. Their texture is pebbly—crumbly when cold but smoother at room temperature, which is how these cheeses should be served. Blue types continue to ripen even after they're cut, so don't lay in too big a supply.

The Roquefort region of France gave birth to the blues. This oldest and most famous of the blue-veined types is still made from ewe's milk and is still ripened in the limestone caves of the Aveyron region. It is gritty, rather sharp and saltier when exported than at home.

The greenish-blue veining can be discouraging at first sight. Even a stalwart such as Charlemagne attempted to devein the cheese on first encounter. Assured that the marbling was the best part, the king tasted the cheese and pronounced it superb. He even ordered some delivered to his palace at Aachen, specifying that each be cut open to verify that it was abundantly veined.

Roquefort, stilton and gorgonzola are the hallowed blues. All are full-flavored and assertive. Gorgonzola is creamier than roquefort; stilton is drier, with a suggestion of cheddar in the flavor. When aged, they become firmer, brown around the edges and sharper. The tradition of porting the stilton began as a practical measure to restore moisture to dried surfaces. Connoisseurs deplore the practice, saying it is used to mask poor quality.

In recent years, Danish blue has caught on, outselling the big three. While price is an inducement, Danish blues sell on their quality. They're highly flavored and heavily veined, but not too bitey or crumbly. Bleu d'auvergne (a milder cow's-milk version of roquefort), normanna-ost (a Norwegian blue) and the rare blue cheshire all have their fans among the cognoscenti. Sausage-shaped, creamy pipo crem' and soft, spreadable bleu de bresse are more delicate fromages persilles, which still offer authentic blue taste. Bleu de bresse comes in a handy eight-ounce size but doesn't keep very well. If the package sends strong, ammonial messages or the foil wrap sticks to the cheese, try another box.

Blues are often blended with cream cheese or butter for dips, stuffed in celery, crumbled into salads, served on crackers with cocktails. They're delicious with Golden Delicious apples and other fruit. The Spanish have a novel way with the native blue, queso de cabrales. serving it with sweet, golden honey for dessert.

[recipe_title]Very Hard Cheeses[/recipe_title]

The very hardest cheeses are called granas in Italy for their characteristic sandygranular body. Hard cheeses take long curing, two years or more, and they're very low in moisture, therefore firmer. Flavor and color deepen with age and the cheese becomes even more granular and brittle. Granas are rubbed with grapeseed oil, wine and lampblack to seal out the air—like corking a bottle. Cheeses are auditioned by light thumpings of a hammer to test for maturity. A skilled tapper can tell by the tone when a cheese is ready.

The classic grana is parmesan. Parmesan reggiano (from the Reggio district) is without peer. Other place names are emiliano, lodigiano, modena and a grana padano from the Piedmont region. Parmesan was popular back in Boccaccio's time. One of the Decameron tales is about rolling plump pillows of ravioli down a mountain of grated parmesan, to coat the pasta. A tempting vision—it almost reads like a Restaurant Associates spectacular.

Romano or sardo romano is sharper and saltier than parmesan. Pecorino romano is made with sheep's milk, caprino romano with goat's milk. These days, we're seeing more and more asiago substituted for parmesan, because of price. Asiago is a piquant table cheese when young and an acceptable replacement for parmesan when fully aged. Young parmesan, incidentally, is often served as a table cheese in Italy, but it's hard to find in the States.

Switzerland is known for several very hard cheeses. The jade-colored sapsago is flavored with clover and may be grated into an omelet. Spalen, or sbrinz, is hard, pungent and richer in butterfat than parmesan. The cheese is so indurate it is often cut with a wood plane, the shavings sprinkled with pepper and eaten with vegetables.

All the very hard cheeses are primarily grated and used as condiments in soups, pastas, sauces, eggs and to gratinee casseroles, fish and baked vegetables. Dry monterey, an aged American jack, is used as a grating cheese on the West Coast.

[recipe_title]Cheese and Wine[/recipe_title]

Cheese and wine are represented as the ideal gastronomic alliance and, indeed, they're a happy combination. But cheese is not a proper palate cleanser at a wine-tasting. If you're a serious sipper, you know that cheese makes wine appear better than it is, because it desensitizes the palate. Paul Kovi, savvy director of New York's prestigious Four Seasons restaurant, does not encourage his patrons to nibble strong cheese with his great vintages. For support, he cites the Bordeaux wine merchants' creed, "Buy on bread, sell on cheese."

Traditionalists want only red wine with their cheese, the stronger the cheese, the heavier the wine. Being candid as well as astute, Kovi has some definite recommendations in this area, not all of them classic. He prefers one of the medium-sweet Sauternes, a Barsac or Château Suduiraut, to accompany roquefort, a sturdy white Burgundy, perhaps a Meursault, with crèmes and creamy spreads, mature Bordeaux with brie and an extrasec champagne with gourmandise or rambol. He regards Trappist cheeses as ideal mates for full-bodied Chambertins and caraway-flavored kuminost a fine foil for flowery Gewürztraminers.

Cheese has been described as milk's leap toward immortality. There's something for every palate in the multitude of varieties now on the market. Those who prefer rosé wines will probably opt for the mild-ripened or fresh-milk cheeses. However, if you've a touch of the swashbuckler, have a fling at the rowdier types, such as livarot and maroilles. But whatever way you go, you'll have a great time along the whey.