Say Cheese!

Saturday night we hosted our first ever cheese-tasting, and here are the 5 beuaties we sampled. We tried 2 soft cow's milk cheeses from France; a Brie de Lyon and a Livarot from Normandy. Also from cow's milk were 2 Italian cheeses; a Piave Vecchio from Veneto and a Blue del Moncenisio from Piedmont. Finally, we sampled a goat's milk cheese (chevre) from Burgandy, France, a Charolais. We served them at room temperature with the 2 baguettes and some red wine. The ground rules for picking these 5 were that we try enough cheeses to get some good contrasts, not so many that we'd get fatigued palates, and that we experiment with cheeses we'd never tried before.

How were they? Well, they were all DELICIOUS. Starting with the French cheeses, though, I'll give you a bit more of a description than just that.

The Charolais (the rough cylindrical one) was smooth,creamy,and delightfully bitter. The taste is also a little sour, and not salty. This cheese is pale yellow inside, with a creamy texture more like a brie, almost melting onto the bread rather than crumbling when spread. It was very different from other chevres that I've tried, which tend to be white, thick and somewhat like a crumbly cream cheese.

The Livarot , as you can see, has an orange rind and is a soft, creamy yellow cheese. It has a sharp tang, is VERY bitter, and somewhat of a "stinky cheese", if you know what I mean. Very full flavored and strong. It was cut somewhat by the bread and a big hit with our guests.

I, however, preferred the Brie de Lyon. This is a cheese you could eat all day (or all evening, like us!). With it's white soft rind and butter color it looked like Bries I've sampled before. But it really surprised me. The cheese was not at all bitter or sour. It was mild, creamy, thick, smooth, slightly salty, and buttery. In fact, it tasted somewhat like butter, only better.


Now onto our Italians. The Piave Vecchio is a hard cheese. It looks like a Romano cheese, pale golden color with some white flecking. It is dry and a flakes easily. It is a much gentler sweeter cheese than Romano, perfect for a cheese tasting after dinner party because it is salty but also has a very fruity flavor that Iwasn't expecting. I loved this cheese and wil definitley buy more of it. I think it would taste wonderful with pears.

The Blue del Moncenisio was a knockout. I've only just grown up enough to start liking blue cheese in the past year (and I'm a lot closer to 40 than I am to 30...). but still, this is the best Blue I've ever tried./ The cheese is, like all the others on our plate, a golden yellow. The blue veins, however, are more of a soft, sagey green than a blue. The veins are large too, giving the mold the appearance of folded fresh chopped sage. Creamy, a little sour, tangy, a bit pastier than the Brie. This cheese aslo has a very floral bouquet that contrasts deliciously with its own saltiness.


If you're looking for a great way to serve cheeses and don't want to sample 5 at once, try serving a cheese course. At our house, we've been happily working our way through the recipes in this book since Christmas. So far, every one has been a hit.

Bon Appetit!