Finally, a bargain—and in a niche with slim pickings. La Dama Sagrada, an aged wheel from raw goat’s milk, cost me just north of $20 a pound. For cheese of such quality, that’s not a price I see much anymore. Predictably, demand for this newcomer has outraced supply, but the Spanish maker is trying to ramp up production. Did I mention that the cheese is a steal?
Read moreRaw Milk Manifesto
Always Raw: (clockwise from top) 5 Spoke Tumbleweed; Meadow Creek Grayson; Matos St. George; Grafton Village 2-Year Cheddar
Aged cheeses made with raw milk are dwindling in number, in part because FDA scrutiny makes the future uncertain for cheesemakers who choose to work in this traditional way. Even so, some persist. I’ve asked several leading cheesemakers who work exclusively with raw milk to tell us why they bother.
Read moreWhy So Expensive?
(left to right) Oveja Negra Manchego ($30/lb); Pecorino di Filiano ($20/lb); Bellwether Farms Pepato ($40/lb)
“For years, we’ve held our price down,” the cheesemaker told me. But he couldn’t hold the line any longer. The economics of aged sheep’s milk cheese was forcing him to bump up prices, and not by a little. What I didn’t understand, and what the cheesemaker convincingly explained, was why comparable wheels from Europe often cost much less.
Read moreA Century in the Making
I’m always intrigued to learn how a cheese goes from idea to reality. This luscious newbie from West Marin can trace its roots back more than a century, to the day when 17-year-old Fredilino Lafranchi left his home in the Swiss canton of Ticino to try his luck in the U.S. He had $35 in his pocket
Read moreSharp Attack
Seriously, what is “seriously” sharp? You’ve seen mild, medium and sharp Cheddars at the supermarket. Maybe you’re the extra-sharp type. For some time now, I’ve been pondering what sharpness means and where it comes from. People ask me all the time what make Cheddar sharp, and I don’t have an answer.
Read moreShop 'Til You Drop
Apart from the time she spends in airports, Sue Sturman has my dream job. She oversees the English-language courses for Academie Opus Caseus, a French program that trains people for careers in cheese. One of the school’s offerings is a four-day “insider’s tour” of Paris cheese shops. The experience is for professionals only, but I figured Sue would give us a peak. If you’re headed to Paris (and isn’t everyone, eventually?), here’s what to know before you go:
Read moreSwiss Bliss
As many cheese professionals know, Oxford University Press is in the process of compiling the first Oxford Companion to Cheese. If it’s even half as good as OUP’s corresponding works for beer (edited by Garrett Oliver) and wine (edited by Jancis Robinson), this encyclopedia will be a must-have reference.
Read moreSmall Niche, Big Player
What a crowd pleaser. Created little more than a decade ago, Cabricharme already feels like a cheese-counter mainstay. Who can resist this Belgian goat’s-milk charmer? The rind is gorgeous, the interior luscious and supple and the aroma off the charts.
Read moreEncore, Encore
You’re right. This is the same cheese pictured in last week’s Planet Cheese. But that was a teaser. I identified it then but didn’t describe it, and this is a cheese you want to know. Goat’s milk blues aren’t that common, and great ones like Persillé de Rambouillet are rarer still. Where has this cheese been all my life?
Read moreAsh is Back
Remember the missing Morbier? Over the past two years, the FDA detained several imported cheeses because they contained vegetable ash, an ingredient the agency considered a non-permitted colorant. Never mind that European cheesemakers have been using ash for centuries—largely to make the surface of acidic cheeses more hospitable to good molds. Numerous scientific reviews have found nothing scary about ash.
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