Affidelice Berthaut "Affiné au Chablis" This little washed rind cow's milk cheese comes from Burgundy, France, and is closely related to Epoisses. Instead of being washed in marc brandy as Epoisses is, Affidelice is matured with Chablis. It is made with unskimmed milk. It comes in a little chipwood box like Epoisses does, and is covered in clear plastic. Its rind is orange and sticky, and when prompted with a knife, it oozes like fondue. It has a pronounced aroma that is reminiscent of Epoisse's, but its flavor is not nearly as strong. 90 calories per oz., 7g of fat, and 224mg of sodium. The 7g of fat is proof that these creamy, luscious, intense cheeses are not higher in fat than others.
Airedale, Aged $15.99 lb., $2.40 for a tiny slice. Whitestone, organic cheese from New Zealand made with vegetable rennet. It looks a lot like Edam with its semi-soft paste, light color, occasional curd holes, and red wax. It smells very grassy. On the palate, it's tangy, salty, very salty, and milky. It melts on your tongue. It is way too easy to eat. It tastes a lot like an Edam in the way it has that rubbery milky flavor, but it has much more depth. I could do without so much salt, but it's good. This cheese is named for the district of Airedale and has won many prizes. http://www.whitestonecheese.co.nz
Akawi Semisoft Cheese by MidEast. $7.29 for a 32 oz. Mason jar of cheese chunks. (And yes, this is really a Mason jar. It says so on the jar.) This is made from cow's milk. The label is in English and Arabic. The guys at Mashala Market in Austin (Siam Brothers from Palestine) told me that it is from a town called Aker in northern Palestine. They said it was a whey cheese. It is very salty. If it is too hard, then it can be boiled to soften it up. It can also be fried in olive oil, but a cheese called Mabulsi is the best for frying. It is only 230 mg per oz., but boy does it taste saltier. It has the texture of a firm Feta or Mizithra. It comes packed in a brine. In the Middle East, it is primarily used as a table cheese. This is one of the saltiest cheeses I have ever had. It is firm and a little chewy. When I chew it, I can hear my teeth squeaking. After I taste the salt, I get a flavor of fresh milk.
Alouette
My friend Stife brought this cheese to a Sunday night potluck.
It is really garlicy and fatty, but good for a spreading cheese. Americans will like this kind of stuff. I liked it, but it had a tad of processed taste and sometimes
the herbs were overpowering. I
couldn’t eat it much since it is has so much garlic in it.
It has a good creamy taste, though.
It reminds me of onion dip.
Alouette, Creamy Brie (see Brie)
Amaltheia Organic Dairy Spiced Pepper Chèvre About $6 for a 4 oz. tub online at AmaltheiaDairy.com. This is so good and hot and peppery, but not too hot. It is Amaltheia's trademark fluffy and super fresh chèvre with red peppers mixed in. The cheese takes on a light peach flavor and the pepper flecks are both red and dark red. When I eat this, I get a slight burn on my tongue and every once in a while, one of the peppers pops, like it's still a little crunchy and chewy from being so fresh. This is not dehydrated pepper flakes or something pickled beyond recognition. This cheese won an award and it's easy to see why. It gives such a pleasant, slow burn and it fulfills every grown-up fantasy of pimiento cheese sandwiches. I don't know what these peppers are, but one piece was even a light green. These peppers really balance out the tanginess of the cheese to the point that I can't tell which came first, the pepper tang or the cheese tang. Oddly enough, the combination makes the goat seem more mellow than in the other flavors. Photo of Amaltheia Spiced Pepper Chèvre
Amaltheia
Organic Dairy Sun-Dried Tomato Chèvre About $6 for a 4 oz. tub, available
online online at AmaltheiaDairy.com
or in "natural" stores. Amaltheia makes organic goat cheeses in
Belgrade, Montana. This cheese's name comes from ancient Greek mythology.
Amaltheia has associations with the Capricorn goat constellation. The owners of
it is tangy, of course, soft, tingly, creamy and crumbly, but in a way that if
you mash down on what looks like soft crumbles, the cheese immediately spreads.
This cheese is already savory, but they have also mixed in chopped up sun-dried
tomatoes to give it that extra edge with a bit of chew. I thought it could use
even more tomatoes--especially since I kept picking out the original ones and
eating them--so I chopped up some and added them. It was good except that my
batch of tomatoes were too bright and made the cheese look like a dessert. The
cheese was excellent on little crostini-type thin slices of baguettes toasted
with a brushing of olive oil. Extremely long finish for a fresh cheese and
phenomenal texture that is almost inhalable. This comes in little 4 oz. tubs of
fluff that are gone all too quickly. It is only 70 calories per oz., 5g of fat,
and 115mg sodium. Photo
of Amaltheia Sun-dried Tomato Chèvre
Amaltheia Organic Dairy Goat Ricotta About $6 for a 4 oz. tub online
at AmaltheiaDairy.com,
$4.99 a tub at LifeThyme in NYC. Super smooth, milky, lightly tangy, but not as tangy as the
regular chèvre. When it comes to room temperature, it gets super fluffy and
stays in place, all bouncy, like a cow ricotta. It doesn't have such large
clumps, though. It is a little grainy, but it feels smoother and dryer--as in
wine acidity dry--than the regular Almaltheia chèvre. I really love this, but
you can only order six 4-oz. tubs on the internet for $34.99, and you need to
get six of them. This is everything I imagined it would be--light, super
delicate, fresh, bright. I love it. Life Thyme in NYC simply MUST start carrying
this. I would buy at least one of these a week. The only thing that is odd that
is if people really want to use this for a lasagna as someone mentioned on the
website, then they would have to buy several tubs. It seems sort of a pain to
do. As it is packaged, it seems more like it's meant to be eaten as a spread
instead of for cooking. However, it melts really well. Photo
of Amaltheia Goat Ricotta
Amaltheia Organic Feta See "F" for Feta.
Ami du Chambertin See L'Ami du Chambertin
Appenzeller Extra Aged
$14.99 lb. at Central Market, $2.85 for a slender slice.
Cow’s milk from Switzerland. It
has a hard, orange rind. The paste
is dark cream-colored, and towards the rind, it gets dark gray-green.
It is semi-hard and has some spring to it. It smells like nuts and stinks a little.
It is creamy, smooth-textured, herby and grassy.
It has a stinky flavor like the Raclette, but an almost sweet aftertaste,
a little bit of bitterness. I’m
sure it will give me bad breath, but this sure was a yummy cheese.
I read that it has been immersed in wine and cider before it is aged.
Read more about it at
http://www.gourmet-a-la-modem.com/0112453.htm
This is a great page, but beware. When
you open it, a cybercow moos.
Asiago by Fair Oaks Farms. This Asiago comes not from Italy, but from Fair Oaks, Indiana between Indianapolis and Chicago. The cheese is semi-hard. It is much firmer than an Italian Asiago, but softer than aged Asiago. It is a good, fruity snacking cheese with a tiny bit of bite. The sharpness turns into sweetness in the finish, but then all the flavors merge in the end. Fair Oaks says that this cheese should have small holes, but mine doesn't. When it melts, the flavor becomes buttery and smooth--and even makes soft strings when pulled. It is a good melter. Fair Oaks suggests pairing this cheese with a fruity white or light red wine. It also goes with all sorts of fruit, including melon, figs, strawberries, and grapes. The dairies that contribute to this cheese are some of the largest in the U.S. 30,00 dairy cows are located on 10 separate sites and are milked three times a day. The cows sleep on comfortable and cooling sand beds that make it difficult for bacteria to grow. You can also order their cheeses by mail at shop.fofarms.com.
Asiago Fresco $9.99 lb. at Whole Foods. Asiago is a town in northeastern Italy. Light colored, white/cream. The curd is not pressed too tight and it has a lot of moisture. It comes in a flat wheel. It is tangy, creamy, great mouthfeel -- semi-soft, sticks to the knife. It is very mild and milky. The fresco is aged 2-3 months, and sometimes just 30-40 days. This is a great snacking cheese. It reminds me a little bit of Montasio, but milder. It is made in Asiago, in the Veneto region. Originally it was made with sheep's milk, but now is a cow cheese. It pairs well with crusty bread and salami.
Asiago Vecchio Artisanal Cheese in NYC. I ordered this from Artisanal. The insert says: "This is a classic Northern Italian cow's milk cheese. It is intense, nutty and richly flavored. This is an excellent cheese for grating or serving alongside prosciutto, hard sausages, and other cured meats." This is a beautiful cheese. It has a natural, rustic brown dusty rind. The paste is pale yellow, semi-hard, with very small, well-spaced eyes that are closer together in the middle. It smells like grass, salt, and dirt. The taste is very sharp and spicy. On the finish, it burns my tongue. It is good and definitely tastes Italian. This cheese is supposed to go with Amarone, and with its bitterness and full flavor, I can see why.
Australian Blue Brie $15.95 lb. at Homegrown in Birmingham, AL. $7.82 for a big slice. This cheese's rind is a little bit too hard. It is turning kind of beige grey where it sat on the straw or the drain. It is a blue Brie, but it is really more blue than Brie. It is sweet like an Australian blue cheese, like the Roaring 40's blue. It has more blue in it than other blue Bries. The inoculation holes are on the outside of the rind. I like this cheese a lot, probably because it is more like a blue than a Brie. The blue is thick and chewy, and seems to be in clumps. It is sweet and milky, and the blue is very mild and musty. When I eat a piece and hold it in my mouth, I can almost drink the Brie part, but then, in my mouth, I'm left with something like little pieces of cardboard paper. It is the blue. It is not so salty of a cheese. For being a blue Brie, it should be a little softer and more lush. The rind is too tough, but it's a good cheese.
Azeitao $14.99 lb. at Whole foods. $3.90 for half a round. It is a sheep’s milk cheese from Portugal, named after the town it was made in. It has straw-colored paste. It looks kind of like a little brie and is the size of a small hamburger. It has a soft paste, runny in the middle at room temperature. The crust was sort of orange and it was wrapped up in cheesecloth and then in paper with a bunch of Portuguese on it. It was stinky. It had some stinky foot smell to it. It was supposed to have a raisin aftertaste, and I guess it did. It was a little fruity and salty. It has a weird, but not objectionable, aftertaste. It tasted more like olives to me than anything. The crust reminded me of taleggio. I think it’s raw milk. Interesting cheese. A little tangy bitterness in aftertaste. It is aged with thistle instead of rennet, so it’s vegetarian. From what I hear, the Portuguese are known for using more thistle for curing cheeses. It was runny and the crust nearly separated from the cheese. It kind of grosses me out, but I like it. Patrick and I ate this cheese in the Whole Foods parking lot. We took pieces of bread and dipped them into the soft paste. It got pretty hot that day and the cheese stunk up the truck pretty bad. You can read about it at http://www.igourmet.com/shoppe.asp?cat=1&subcat=Portugal Overall, it is a really good, interesting cheese, but I bet most people wouldn’t like it. You are supposed to be able to eat the rind, but I didn’t.