Fair Oaks Farms Royal Blue  See Royal Blue.

Fair Oaks Farms Sweet Swiss  See Swiss.

Farmer Cheese by Lifeway  $3.99 for a 16 oz. tub at Whole Foods.  It is very low fat, low cholesterol and low sodium.  It is from Morton Grove, IL, http://www.lifeway.com.  I really really liked it.  It wasn’t like the Russian Farmer’s cheese from Phoenicia Bakery like I had hoped, but it was still good.  It looked a lot like a creamy, thick cottage cheese, firm, but with some curd in it.  It tasted like a mix between quark and cottage cheese, but not so salty.  It has a little bit of a sour taste to it like the quark does.  I loved this for a snack.  I ate it with pita crackers. 

Farmer cheese $2.09 at Central Market for a 7.5 oz. package.  It is made by Friendship in Friendship, NY.  http://www.friendshipdairies.com  It comes in a soft plastic package with the cheese wrapped in paper inside.  I like it a lot, though it is kind of dull.  It is better than cottage cheese and perhaps less salty.  It is bright white, very small curds.  The curds are smooth and crumbly, but still stick together well.  It spreads well.  It is not too expensive.  I am eating it in place of cottage cheese with Norwegian rye crackers.  Two tablespoons is 50 calories.  It seems like a lot, but I guess it’s not.  350 calories and about 15 g of fat for the entire package is not too bad.  I don’t like the fat free version of this product at all. 

Fat Free Jalapeño Jack by Lifetime  $5.99 at Westside Market in NYC. Yes, this is fat free and yes it is flavored, and yes it is a process cheese--"pasteurized process cheese product" to be exact--but I eat this anyhow. For a firm cheese, it is the best fat free cheese out there and this pepper version is the best of all the others in the Lifetime line, including the Sharp Cheddar. It is white with a generous helping of jalapeño peppers scattered throughout the paste. The texture is a little gummy, but less so than the full fat process cheeses out there and not much different from industrial cheeses in general. It melts great on a low fat corn tortilla in the microwave for a quick, high protein, fat free quesadilla snack. I eat this cheese on a very regular basis because (1) I like to eat a lot of cheese and (2) I have to balance out my intake of full fat cheeses with some fat free cheeses or else my fat count will exceed 100g per day! This cheese is only 40 calories per oz., 0g fat, 8g protein, and 220mg sodium. http://www.lifetimecheese.com in California, distributed by Lifeline Food Company. It is also vegetarian and made from non-rBST treated milk. Photo of Fat Free Jalapeño Jack

Feta, Amaltheia Organic Dairy  $4.99 for a tiny 4 oz. brick at LifeThyme in NYC. Beautiful feta. It comes in such a cute little brick, and it is a gorgeous white color, as feta tends to be! Salty and tangy, but not too much of either one. It is just pleasant, faintly goaty, not animaly, and veyr snackable. In some ways, it's more about what this feta doesn't have, what it isn't, that makes it so appealing. Biting into it is kind of a relief where you think, "Oh, thank goodness this doesn't taste like all those others." This is, for me, what feta should taste like. It is a very balanced feta with a velvety, tender texture. It can crumble, but it doesn't break apart and get clunky like some. It won't pickle your palate with salt. It doesn't break off into chewy, rubbery chunks. It is more delicate. This may be one of my favorite fetas ever. I like it because it is not overly brined. It comes in plastic rather than in a tub floating in salt. It also has a long shelf life. The price is a little difficult--$20 lb.--if you wanted to use this as an ingredient. For me, it's best as a cheese to eat with one other person over antipasti like sweet red tomatoes on the vine, marinated pepper salad, and black olive bread. Photo of Amaltheia Feta

Feta, Pure Luck Goat  $15.99 lb. and $.96 for a teeny tiny chunk.  This feta is delicious!  It’s not too salty and it has a spicy, creamy taste to it.  Too bad it costs so much.  This is my absolute favorite feta!  

Fiore di Sardegna  $11.99 lb. at Central Market, $3.84 for a big chunk.  This was the best of the Sardinian cheeses.  I was trying to find one to take to a party where Pecorino Sardo was requested, but couldn't find exactly that cheese.  This one is close, also called Fiore Sardo (DOC).  Pecorino Sardo is the cheese that the maggot cheese Casu Marzu is made of in Sicily.  This cheese, just as Pecorino Romano, has a rind that is mysteriously painted black.  I have seen no explanation for why the rind is painted.  Possibly, the paint protects the rind of the cheese so that it won't turn into maggot cheese!  The cheese is hard, dark straw-colored, and almost greenish in tint.  It is very crumbly and grainy.  It is not as salty as a Pecorino Romano, but has a similar texture.  I didn't like it at first.  It tasted like a refrigerator.  I thought that maybe it had not been kept well, but all the Sardinian cheeses had that flavor, and they all seemed healthy.  I think that what I am tasting is herbs and grass instead.  Very grassy.  At the beginning, the cheese tastes lightly tangy and a little lactic.  Then you get the strange texture.  In the finish, the herbs emerge, and then the sheepy, milky taste.  It's not bad, but I think I'd use it more for a grating cheese.  I can't seem to quit eating it, though.  It's supposed to be a good grating cheese since it doesn't overpower dishes like Pecorino Romano or Parmesan.  People at the tasting really liked it.

Fleur Verte, Picandine $17.99 at Whole Foods. $9.53 for a birthday cake sized slice. This is a beautiful cheese and always a party pleaser. It is a fresh goat's milk cheese from France that comes in a huge cake-like round with curves on the edges. The texture is like a hard ice cream. Color -- bright white. On the outside, there are shredded fresh herbs and juniper berries. It actually looks just like somebody got some grass clippings and rolled the cheese in it, but the taste is much better. It has a distinct anise and juniper flavor. The anise flavor probably comes from tarragon. Super tangy, wild-tasting cheese. It is tangy without being too acidic. There is the initial tang, and then it just melts in to fresh cream and pasture. It is excellent. I am serving this cheese at a Christmas party and it has perfect Christmas colors -- red and green on white.  

Le Fol Epi/Emmenthal  HEB, France   This was also good.  It was more like a Swiss cheese or emmenthal than anything.  It was very mild, nutty, lightly tangy, and creamy with a nice full, long finish.  It is luscious. The crust is darker and edible, and it has a wheat base.  I couldn’t taste the wheat in the cheese, though.   

Fontal Valligiana  $8.99 lb. at Whole Foods, $2 for a medium chunk.  Like Fontina.  Very creamy, light, yellow, tangy, soft and supple texture.  It has a light orange rind.  I think it’s wax.  Creamy smell and taste, a little tangy with a bitter aftertaste.  It has a little bit of stinky foot in it.  It is Italian.  It is always made with pasteurized milk. 

Fontina Val d’Aosta  $11.99 lb., $1.92 for a very small slice at Central Market.  Finally they had this cheese.  I had been waiting on it for a long time.  It is like a very mild Raclette or  Fromadzo.  It barely had any stinky foot in it.  It has a hard brown rind, yellow interior, hard towards the rind, but semi-soft inside.  It is really good.  Of course it is good to cook with, but it would also make a nice table cheese.

Fontina, Les Petites Fermieres  $4.99 for an 8 oz. block at Pomegranate. Nothing at all like Italian Fontina, but not bad. It's just a completely different cheese. It has none of that funk or mountain character. That doesn't mean it's not good, but just that I have trouble calling this Fontina. About the only things I see in common with this and Italian Fontina is that both are from cow's milk and both are excellent melting cheeses. Les Petites Fermieres' Fontina is extremely milky and buttery with a touch of tang. It is semi-soft, pretty much. You can slice or cube it, but it sticks some to the knife. When you open the package, it immediately has this intense butter and milk flavor. Very fresh flavor, but not overly lactic smell. It is also the color of European butter. The butter flavor really lingers on. Nice, but not Fontina Val d'Aosta. This was great for snacking with apples and grapes, and it melted nicely over a baked potato with fresh chives, but it was not so interesting melted on bread; it was just more texture than anything. It  OK kosher and kosher for Passover. Made in California. Photo of LPF Fontina. 

Formaggio Mozzarella Ciliegine  About $6 per tub at Stop n' Shop. Yum! Ciliegine cherry-sized mozzarella unflavored or marinated in oil. There were many flavors, but I got the sundried tomato and parsley. Click here for a quick video of me enjoying Formaggio Mozzarella, made in Hurleyville, NY. Tablet K kosher and vegetarian. http://www.formaggiocheese.com and Formaggio Ciliegine photo.

Formaggio Fresh Mozzarella Sundried Tomato & Parsley About $8 per tub at Stop n' Shop in NJ. This is delicious, but it is listed as being 120 calories per oz. with 10 g of fat. Fine, but for a 16 oz. tub, that equals 16 servings with maybe like only 20 mozzarella balls! The fat is coming from the oil, obviously. The mozzarella balls do soak up a good bit of oil, but I don't think each ball is quite as high calorie as the label has to state. I think that is going on if somebody ate all that oil along with the balls. There is a lot of oil that can be reused for a salad dressing or to marinate even more mozzarella balls once the original ones are gone. I did marinate other balls, but I liked the original ones the best because they had gotten all fudgy-textured and soft from the marinade. I love this combination. The sundried tomatoes taste a little meaty and the parsley is perfect for a seasoning. There is not too much garlic. I was eating these ciliegine for breakfast right out of the tub and making sure to get at least one strip of tangy sundried tomatoes along with each bite of mozzarella. The sundried tomatoes and the parsley are an excellent play on the red, green, and white Caprese mozzarella salad. The olive oil/canola oil blend was good, too, as a bread dip with all the leftover tomatoes and parsley floating around. Tablet K kosher and vegetarian. Formaggio Sundried Tomato & Parsley photo.

Formaggio Mozzarella, Smoked  See Mozzarella.

Fougerus $12.99 lb. at Artisanal. $3.91 for a small slice. This is a soft-ripened cow's milk cheese from France that comes with a fern frond on the top. The rind is very hard. The paste is yellow, soft, sticky, and almost gummy with some little holes in it. It looks thick and almost like froth that has been frozen. It is buttery, tangy, very salty with a mushroomy finish. Its not very bitter, but then again, I am not eating the rind. It came in a small round with some dried up fern leaves on top. Artisanal describes it as sweet, savory, with resilient paste. Le Fougerus is made near Paris. It is slightly smaller than a Coulommiers. Originally, it was made on a farm. The fern leaf served as decoration and flavoring. The scent of the fern is supposed to blend with the smell of the mold. It is aged for four weeks. It is supposed to go with Bourgogne, Bordeaux, or Côtes du Rhône.

Fourme d’Ambert  $7.99 lb. at Whole Foods, $2.72 for a big chunk.  Just packaged the day before.  It looks like a blue cheese that comes in a big cylinder.  The piece I bought was covered with ugly rind on the underside.  It is also wrapped in foil.  The rind is brown with some gray on it, and pretty thick.  This cheese is very soft, maybe softer than semi-soft.  It is a cow’s milk cheese, young, so it’s sweet.  It is mild.  The blue is pretty and well-dispersed.  Salty, lightly nutty from the mold.  Not too much blue taste, a little bit bitter.  Has a woodsy aftertaste, but is also mildly sweet and creamy.  It’s not really so sweet like the Roaring 40’s blue.  I think people who are scared of blue cheese would still like this ok.  I really did like this one, too.  I read that it is one of France’s oldest cheeses dating back to the Roman times.  It ages for 3-4 weeks.  It is pasteurized.  I’d definitely buy this cheese again.  It’s pleasant and was really cheap!

Fourme d'Ambert $18.99 lb. at Murray's, $4.37 for a small wedge. Beefy, a little barnyardy, meaty, like a sausage or some sort of cured meat. The aftertaste is very salty. It has a burn that is a little ammoniated. For me, this is a little too salty. For my husband, it is not and it is mild, creamy, doesn't burn your mouth. The texture is nice. It is medium soft, so that it can spread at room temperature. It is ivory colored on the inside, and then darker, even brown, right at the rind so that it really looks like a sheep's milk cheese. The blue is grey, blue, and with a hint of dark green in some places. The rind is firm, natural, and craggy with a brown tint and a dusting of white. It is made of raw cow's milk from the Auvergne region of France. It comes in a tall cylinder. Murray's calls this cheese mild, but because of the salt and the bite, I don't think it's so mild. It is made from penicillium glaucum instead of penicillium roqueforti, the latter being a mold that is known for causing a greater bite. Murray's says that this is one of the few blues suitable for lighter reds. Photo of Fourme d'Ambert

French Goat Brie  $12.69 lb. From Whole Foods, $5 for a decent chunk, but pricy.  Extremely mild, almost too mild.  Creamy, perfect creaminess.  You have to search for the goat in this goat cheese. So creamy that the innards are running out the sides when it is soft.  Would not offend Americans at all.  Very approachable.  Has barely had time to ferment.

French Sheep cheese, Feta  $5.95 lb at the Phoenicia Bakery.  Milder feta, more expensive than the domestic feta. 

Fresh & Healthy  See Mozzarella.

Fromadzo from Val d’Aosta  $20.99 lb., $5 for a medium chunk at Grapevine.  The guy at the counter said that it was from the same place as where they make Fontina.  I had immediately recognized the name as the franco-provencal word for cheese.  I tasted it, and it is a lot like a mild raclette.  It is hard, cream-colored on the inside, some fermentation holes.  It gets darker towards the rind.  The crust is hard and moldy, orange-ish with flecks of white.  They cut the cheese for me themselves.  The piece I got was on the edge, so some of the white mold had grown down onto the body of the cheese.  I guess it wasn’t a very popular cheese.  It is a little bit bitter in the aftertaste.  It has a nice creamy flavor, but definitely has a bite to it.  It would be good to cook with.

Fromager d’Affinois  Small/medium slice for $4, $8.99 lb. At Central Market.  This cheese is great.  It’s 60% m.g., but it tastes like it is full of even more fat than it is.  It is like a brie, but really soft, creamy, rich.  It has a great lactic taste and smooth texture.  When it’s room temperature, the paste bulges right out the side, and the rind is mild—blends right in with the paste.  People will like this cheese.  It is luscious.  It is not rubbery at all.  It tastes like milk.  It also comes in a square as a pave d’affinois, but I think the square is supposed to be stronger.

Fromage Blanc, Vermont Butter and Cheese Company  I think this was about $3 for a little tub at Whole Foods.  It is 8 oz. of French-style skim milk cheese.  It was kind of like Quark, but seemed lighter.  It is fat-free, has a good bit of sodium, but doesn’t taste too salty, and has protein.  I really liked it.  ¼ cup is 30 calories, 100 mg of sodium.  It tasted a little bit sour, has little gritty curds in it.  I’d get it again, but it is kind of expensive for how fast I eat it.

Fromage Blanc by Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery Under $5 at Whole Foods. “Made with rBST-free Vermont fresh milk, fromage blanc is the French answer to yogurt. Packed with protein, calcium, and only 120 calories per container, serve with fresh herbs as a dip with crudité, or sweetened with fruit.” Ingredients: pasteurized skim cows’ milk, culture, enzymes, salt. When you put the spoon in this one, it falls over. The Fromage Blanc is a lot more watery and is very shiny. I can see a tiny bit of grit in it. I taste it and am immediately hit with a sour acidity. Yes, as the label says, it is like a yogurt. I remember it being thicker in France. It is bitter with that sour milk flavor of a fresh cheese. It tastes like a fresh cheese and guess what? It is! It has that fresh lactic tartness that I find in Piedmontese cheeses. It definitely has a bitter edge, so I can see that it would need to be sweetened to go with fruit. It would be good with vegetables, though, and should work in place of yogurt. Overall, it is good, especially for such low calories and zero fat. The finish leaves a tart, dry taste on the palate. It is creamy, but not in a way that greases your entire mouth up like the mascarpone and crème fraiche. Great on bread. It is not so much something I would eat just with a spoon by itself. When you jiggle this fromage blanc around, it goes back into a sort of gelled mass that flattens out.  It almost seems congealed at times. Not good at all melted. It separates immediately and the cheese parts turn chewy and even a little stringy. Then it firms up and the solid part gets all chewy and turns into a little patty on the plate. Kof-K kosher. PHOTO OF FROMAGE BLANC

Fontina Fontal  Central Market.  Semi-soft/semi-hard melting cheese from Italy, pasteurized cow’s milk.  This cheese is good for cooking or for snacking.  It comes in little block-shaped cuts with red rind at the edge.  It is light cream-colored and tastes tangy, milky, and mild.  The flavor lasts a long time and it is fun to eat.  I like this cheese a lot, although it’s not the most exciting cheese I’ve ever tasted.  David at Central Market says that he puts it on pizzas alongside mozzarella.  http://www.cheese.com/Description.asp?Name=Fontal  

Fontina Val d’Aosta  $9.99 lb. at Grapevine.  $6.49 for a big slab.  Ike the cheesemonger said that this cheese was great for melting over vegetables.  He also said that before letting it reach room temperature, it would be good to take off the rind since the rind is so stinky and gets runny and sticky (it's usually not quite that sticky).  However, if it is for a class, he recommended that I leave the rind on before cutting to scare the students.  This sure is a sticky rind.  It is like a cheap doughnut that has gotten stale.  Yuck.  My finger slid right through it when I opened it.  It is really a light cheese.  It is light cream-colored, semi-hard, some holes, and has a very faintly fruity taste.  It is pretty mild for a mountain cheese.  It’s so nice, I can’t even say much about it.  It has a nice smooth finish that drifts off.  At times, it reminds me of olives.  I tried it with a Bordeaux, and it made the wine taste sour. 

Fromager d'Affinois Poivre  See Brie, Pepper.

Full Quiver Farms in Texas See Mozzarella, Fresh, Full Quiver  Full Quiver Link