{ Janet Fletcher / Food Writer }
Alemar Good Thunder (left) and Shepherd’s Way Friesago
Where should you live if you’re a cheese lover? Maybe it’s not as important as great weather, but availability of great cheese is one reason I love where I live. Artisan cheesemaking is happening well beyond the leading dairy states, and it has been exciting to see the activity push into new territory. Weighing a couple of factors, I’ve compiled a (totally subjective) list of the Top Ten Cheese States.
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Ever since my husband, home baker extraordinaire, made a star bread with raspberry jam—gorgeous on the first try—I’ve wanted to make one with cheese. It took a few attempts to transition the sweet recipe to a savory one, but the shaping technique is easier than it looks. I got some whole-grain flour into the dough, which made me happy, while still maintaining a soft texture, like pull-apart dinner rolls. The filling is feta mixed with ricotta and a pinch of dried spearmint. If you want to impress the heck out of people at your Easter table, here’s your recipe.
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The most persistent defenders of raw-milk cheese are, in my view, the cheesemakers of Switzerland. “They see pasteurizing milk as a risk,” says Joe Salonia, a U.S. marketer of fine cheeses from Switzerland. “Why would you do that? Why would you hurt the most precious part of your milk?” With Raw-Milk Cheese Appreciation Day approaching (on April 20), I’ve been thinking about why it’s so critical to defend the right of cheesemakers to work with raw milk. Making the argument for me are the phenomenal cheeses from Gourmino, a Swiss marketing co-op that represents exclusively raw-milk cheeses. You don’t need to know the name Gourmino, but you do need to know its cheeses.
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Steve Jones is one of the cheese world’s wise men, proprietor of Cheese Bar and Chizu in Portland, Oregon, and a cheesemonger everybody respects. He has been telling me for years that he is going to write a book, and now he has done it, with co-author Adam Lindsley. Cheese Beer Wine Cider: A Field Guide to 75 Perfect Pairings(W. W. Norton) takes us on a tasting journey that upends some conventional wisdom. You might be surprised to learn which beverage he would choose for cheese if he could have only one.
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I have long thought that feta was the most useful cheese you could have in your fridge, and a recent trip to Greece convinced me of it. I ate feta from morning to night, in salads (of course), breads, bruschetta, risotto, dips, and pies both sweet and savory. I had squid stuffed with feta; cooked greens topped with feta; and fried feta with sesame seeds and honey. Here’s the highlight reel plus a recipe for one of my favorite dishes from the trip.
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Spring. Not a moment too soon. I’m dreaming of fresh cheese and fava beans, those first-of-the-season moist favas that hardly need cooking. I slather the cheese on toast and spoon the warm favas on top. Herbs of choice. As long as favas are in season, this is the go-to app at my house. (Asparagus works, too). The recipe is from my beautiful new book, Wine Country Kitchen.
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One of a kind. Unique. Those words are tossed around a lot but are rarely accurate when it comes to cheese. If it’s a good idea, someone has probably done it. But as far as I know, this splendid, scoopable bark-wrapped goat cheese occupies a category of one. Chef José Andrés nudged the creamery to create it, so we can add that to his long list of good works.
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The European immigrants who settled in the U.S. more than a century ago and began reproducing the cheeses of their homeland couldn’t have imagined we would be arguing about their creations today. These newcomers, not surprisingly, marketed their cheeses with the names they knew: asiago, romano, brie, parmesan, feta. Today, the EU protests that American cheesemakers have no right to these names and insists we stop using them. And the American producers tell the EU to take a hike. These are generic names now, the argument goes. They belong to no one.
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Several years ago, I spent a day behind a busy cheese counter, just for enlightenment. My dad was a retail merchant, but I apparently did not inherit that gene. The cheese store’s customers drove me crazy. I left with renewed respect for the smiling cheese-counter people who put up with our annoying requests and quirky behavior. Today, it’s their turn. I’ve asked a few key retailers about the customers they like best.
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Okay, curd nerds. How many clothbound goat Cheddars can you name? Several producers make goat Cheddar in rindless blocks. But a wheel aged in cheesecloth so it can breathe and develop a rind, like a traditional cow’s-milk Cheddar? That’s a rare thing. Thanks to Quicke’s, the English Cheddar specialist, we can taste the magic that happens when experts apply classic Cheddar techniques to goat’s milk. Quicke’s Goat’s Milk Clothbound is irresistible.
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