On my short list of favorite cheese names, I would surely include Ewe Calf to be Kidding (a three-milk blue cheese from Hook’s in Wisconsin); Triple Play Extra Innings (another ménage à trois from Hooks, with extended aging); Bleu 1924 (a good back story); Moser Screamer (because it’s worth shouting about); and Mary dans les Étoiles (a loving tribute to a departed colleague). Wordplay aside, they’re all superb cheeses. So is the wedge pictured above, which I might have purchased for its name alone, but a sample in the shop sealed the deal. At home, my husband and I had it for lunch with dark bread, onion confit and Saison Dupont. What a welcome new addition to our cheese counters.
Funky Monk comes to us from the same Belgian creamery that makes OG Kristal, the fabulous 18-month Gouda that NASA astronaut Shannon Walker requested for the International Space Station. Cheesemaker Johan Deweer and his son, Louis-Philippe, use cow’s milk from their own herd to produce this five-pound washed-rind wheel. They ship it while young to Van Tricht in Antwerp, the same affineur who matures the OG Kristal and many other fine European cheeses.
I’m guessing that what I tasted was perhaps three months old. The rind was dry, not tacky, and the aroma was surprisingly subdued. Despite the name, Funky Monk is not particularly pungent, especially compared to others in this style, like Munster. For a washed-rind cheese, it’s well behaved, with approachable aromas of sauteed onion, roasted peanut, garlicky sausage and not-too-smelly cow barn.
I know from the label that the recipe includes annatto, but I’m not sure if the colorant is inside or on the rind. The pudgy interior has a rich butter color and a luxurious mouthfeel, dense yet creamy and supple. It’s not super fudgy, the sort of cheese where your teeth leave marks. The salting is perfect, the flavor mild and buttery with no bitterness.
Belgian cheese royalty: Louis-Philippe Deweer (center) and parents Johan Deweer and Dominique Stewart
Photo: Kaasboerderij 't Groendal
No actual monks had a hand in this cheese, to my knowledge. But for centuries, monks in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and France have made cheeses of this type. Munster, Chaumes, Maroilles and Époisses—all stinkers—originated in monasteries. An excellent entry by Matthew Rubiner in the Oxford Companion to Cheese offers a theory as to why monastic life nurtured this type of cheesemaking:
In brief, while the monks themselves may have had few worldly goods, monastic orders were often land rich with large herds. All those cows provided enough milk to make cheese every day, so the milk never sat long enough to become acidic. Acidic milk works well for mold-ripened cheeses like Camembert, not so well for bacteria-ripened cheeses as the acidity inhibits bacteria. But the monasteries’ sweet milk was ideal for cheeses ripened with surface bacteria, which the monks encouraged with frequent brine washing.
Funky Monk has a sibling called Drunk Monk, the same cheese washed in a Belgian blonde ale brewed just for that purpose. I’m keeping an eye out for it.
Look for Funky Monk at the following retailers or ask your cheesemonger for it:
Cheese Plus, San Francisco, CA
Cow Bell Cheese Shop, Portland, OR
DeLaurenti Food & Wine, Seattle
DiBruno Bros, multiple Philadelphia-area locations
France 44, Minneapolis
Guido's Fresh Market, Great Barrington, MA
Houston Dairymaids, Houston
Jimbo's, multiple Southern CA locations
Market Hall Foods, Oakland
Négociant, Portland, OR
New Seasons Market, Portland, OR
Newport Avenue Market, Bend, OR
Providore Fine Foods, Portland, OR
Son of a Butcher, Birmingham, AL
St. James Cheese, New Orleans
Town & Country, Seattle
Venissimo, multiple San Diego-area locations
Wild Petals Market, Bend, OR
Zingerman’s, Ann Arbor, MI