Taleggio
Bontaleggio $9.29 lb., $2.60 for
nice cube. The essence of stinky
foot. Traditionally,has a pinkish
rind. Smells like cat piss and foot
cheese. Pink crust with spots of
mold. Light butter-colored, very
soft, soft crust. For as crazy as
it smells, it’s very subtle-tasting. A
little bit of the bitter foot taste, musky, woody, nutty.
Will give you bad breath.
Tête de Moine $15.99 lb. at
Grapevine, $4.64 for a nice round slab. This
was a very mild washed rind cheese. It
came in a tall cylinder. One slab
was cut off the top so that it was a circle with a rind all around.
The cheese is yellow, semi-hard, and has a dark rind that looks like tree
bark and tastes like molded dog food. We
loved this cheese. It stunk a
little bit, but it sure did taste good. It
was milder than the Chimay we had had. I
tasted some later that was much more pungent, though. It was aromatic with
spicy, meaty flavors.
Tetoun Goat's milk cheese from France. I bought this at Artisanal in NYC. Tetoun means tit. It is described as creamy to flinty, herbacious, and tart. It smells delicious. It is in the shape of a large fig with the point on the top. I guess that is supposed to be the nipple. It does look like a little boob, except for the color and size. It is mottled with grey/white mold on the outside. The paste is dark cream-colored towards the edges, but bone-colored and creamy on the inside. It smells delicious and is bouncy to the touch. It smells very herbacious and also a little sweet as if it has been soaked in wine or some sort of liqueur. It reminds me a lot of Fleur du Maquis. I taste some herby bitterness, like rosemary. This is like eating a little cheesy fruit. It has a great mouthfeel and a nice tangy, minerally, woody quality. It is good with the rind as well. This cheese is made in the south of France in the Alpes of the Haut Provence, and on France’s Mediterranean coast, the 15th February, the day of St. Agatha, is dedicated to women. They gather together and enjoy a feast. On this occasion this cheese is one of their delights. The Tetoun "teats" is a goat’s cheese with a strong character and goat milk savor enhanced by pepper added to the basic flavor of the cheese. It is aged 1-8 weeks.
Texas
Goat Cheese $19.99 at Grapevine Market, $7.40 for a hand-sized ball,
.37 lb. From the Dallas Mozzarella Company. Too bad that this cheese is so
expensive because it is absolutely wonderful. The cheese people at Grapevine
likened it to a Perigord chèvre. It is a gorgeous snowy white color and has a
texture that is both fluffy and creamy at the same time. It tastes lightly of
lemon cream. I love the bright zing on the end, but what is interesting is that
this cheese isn't overpowering in its acidity. It is delicate and creamy on the
tongue like a French chèvre. I love this cheese. The only drawback is its
presentation on the shelf. It comes all wrapped up in cryovac. Once you take it
out of the wrapper, there is another light layer of plastic to unfold, but it is
easy to serve on a tray.
Tilsit From Germany, $6.99 lb. Cow’s
milk. I got a medium chunk for $2.
It is a mild, butter cheese with some small holes in it, very soft for
its type. Buttery, but sort of
strong. Will give you bad
breath.
Tilsit, Aged
Eichten's Hidden Acres from Center City, MN. $14.99 lb., $26.37 for a hefty
round. My cousin
Harriett brought this cheese to a family reunion, fresh off the farm from
Minnesota. Eichten
Farm, Center City, MN 55012 This cheese is dark cream-colored and very yellow.
The label has a cartoon of a little rat holding a knife and cutting a big
log-shaped Swiss cheese. When I cut into it, it is beautiful. I see white flecks
of crystallized protein and salts. It is crumbly, but also sticky. This is
supposed to be a Tilsit, but it is aged for 7 years (the oldest cheese I have
ever eaten!) and has taken on less of a pungent, soft washed-rind flavor and
texture, and more of a Cheddar personality. It reminds me of a cross between a
sharp, sticky, nutty, aged Cheddar and a Parmigiano-Reggiano. This is an
excellent cheese. I love the crunchy bits, which are everywhere. This cheese
also, although aged, melts in your mouth, and suddenly your tongue is coated in
tiny crunchy, salty treats. It is hard to serve and slice since it just crumbles
away, but it is worth the trouble of digging your fingers into. Very salty.
Nutty and sweet, like cashews almost. Sharp like Cheddar with some cream coming
through, but also tangy, almost in the way that a salty pineapple would be. It
reminds me a little of Grafton 4 Star Cheddar, but is more mellow and smooth.
This is such an excellent cheese, I am surprised it was so cheap. It has won
awards. It is very exciting to eat with its long finish, complex flavors, and
excellent, varied texture. I heard this went well with a white wine, but I tried
it with a red first.
Tipsy Cow See Pedrozo Tipsy Cow
Tnuva Cheese Bites $2.99 at Pomegranate for a bag of six. Creamy, cheesy, just the tiniest bit granular, salty. This is a low fat pasteurized process cheese food with only 30 calories per round. They are made in Israel by Tnuva/Emek from the pastoral Galilee region, Israel's dairy heartland. They have 1g fat per serving and 8g protein, 15% daily calcium. OU-D-USA. This is likely the only Tnuva product that is cholov stam and not cholov yisroel. They come in a bag of six rounds, each packed in a miniature plastic kind of bowl that opens up like a clam. Inside is a Gouda-shaped round of soft, cream-yellow colored cheese that is about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. It is soft enough to spread, even right out of the fridge. The bag is bright yellow as is each round as well. There is Hebrew writing on the small packages and cartoons of cows dancing around. One is doing a cartwheel, one yoga, one dancing, and a couple of others dancing. I think this is supposed to be the fitness cheese. Each package says 5%, I guess for the fat. These are not the most interesting things in the world, but they are really easy to eat just dipping a cracker in. It is not bad. Photo of Cheese Bites
Tnuva Labane See Labane.
Toma Biellese $9.99 lb. at Grapevine. $1.70 for a slim slice. From Cheeseworks. Biella in Piedmont is up in the north, in between Valle d'Aosta and Milan. All three of the Tomas I tried from Biella looked very similar. (listed below) They are all cow's milk with semi-firm pastes and firm, dusty, grey rinds. They are made by Luigi Rosso in Biella, Italy.
Toma Brusca $9.99 lb. at Grapevine. $1.30 for a slim slice. From Cheeseworks. Also from Biella in Piedmont, Italy. Cow's milk cheese. This cheese is not as yellow as the other two Tomas from the same town. It is white, crumbly, herbaceous and also floral. The rind smells like fish. On the inside of the rind, there is a fluorescent yellow stripe of something before it turns grey on the edge. It's good. I like the interior better than where it gets towards the funky rind. Otherwise, it's pretty mild and salty.
Toma Cravot $9.99 at Grapevine. $1.40 for a slender slice. Very herbaceous and slightly bitter. Nutty and buttery. This is, again, one of the cheeses that has a gorgeous yellow paste and some curd holes, plus the dusty, craggy grey rind. It melts on your tongue and then tastes like grass. It also has a little of a barnyard flavor.
Toma Montanara $10.99 at Grapevine. $3.30 for a small slab. This cheese is a mountain cheese made in northern Piedmont in Biella, where the Toma Biellese was made. It is cow's milk and has a bark-like rind. The paste has some fluffy curd holes in the middle, but then towards the edges, it becomes yellow and finally almost brown until it blends into the bark. It doesn't have a strong smell, but towards the rind, you can taste fennel and caraway that has been rubbed into the outside of the cheese. It's pretty mild overall -- tangy, milky, creamy very slightly pungent at the end with a taste of dirt. It barely burns my nose.
Toma al Tartufo $19.99 at Grapevine. $4 for a quarter wheel. This is a soft-ripened looking fresh cheese from Alta Langa. It looks a lot like Cravanzina and Robiola. It has a light, bloomy rind and has a creamy, gooey, Brie-like paste. Nutty, creamy, definitely sheepy. Aftertaste of fresh milk and dirty truffles. This is good. I love how delicate and milky it is, but also just a little wild-tasting. I don't like truffles, but this doesn't taste too strong. It's light and delicate, but has an extra oomph of musty earth from the truffles. I also get a little eggy flavor from the fresh cheese and the soft-ripening. The texture of this cheese is perfect. The paste is soft, yet still bounces back. The rind is delicate enough to be fun to bite into -- doesn't feel gritty or gummy.
Toma al Tartufo Truf (see Truf below)
Tomme, Sweet
Grass from Georgia $13.99 lb. at Grapevine. Gourmet cheese from the Deep South. This cheese is
made in South Georgia on the Florida border. They raise sheep, cows,
goats, and chickens. It's not an organic cheese, but it is made with
minimal amounts of pesticides on the farm. The animals don't receive
hormones or unnecessary antibiotics. This cheese looks like a young French
Tomme. It has a dark rind and a yellow paste, semi-hard, crumbly.
The flavor is very light -- much lighter than a Cheddar. It reminds me of
a Double Gloucester since it is subtle, yet long-lasting. http://www.docsnews.com/sweetgrass.html
This cheese is salty, creamy, very lightly tangy, with a very long, smooth
finish. It was very good with an obscure white grape, Torrontés.
Tomme de Ma Grand-Mère
Goat’s milk tome from France $11.99
lb. at Grapevine. $3.24 for a nice
slice. Ivory-colored, crumbly and
dry, with some white and a little blue/black mold speckles on the outside.
It smells a little barnyardy and very goaty.
This is a great cheese. It
reminds me a little of the aged Coach Farm Cones.
It is tangy, salty, pasty mouth-feel, with a mild, weird rubbery, tire
aftertaste. Patrick doesn’t
really like this cheese very much, but I loved it.
Tomme de
Savoie $10.99 lb. At Whole foods,
$2.75 for medium chunk. “One of
the better French Mountain Cheeses” it reads.
Mild, nutty. Milder than the
foot cheese. Butter-colored, little
holes, hard, rough brown/gray rind. Leaves
weird aftertaste with red wine. Good
with nutty bread.
Tomme de
Savoie $8.29 lb. at Wheatsville,
$.91 for a small slice. It reads
“cow’s milk from Alps of France” and “milder than the rind suggests with
flavorful undertones.” The crust
is brown/gray, of course. It is
yellow, deep, rich color with some curd holes.
It is tangy, salty, creamy, has that tendency to make my ears itch like
some mountain cheeses do. It is medium
hard. I like it.
It is pretty mild, but seems to get saltier the more I eat it.
Strange. It burns my tongue
a little bit. It was packaged
yesterday.
Le Tonneau $12.99 lb. at Central Market. "Tonneau" means barrel in French. This cheese comes in a wheel that looks like a barrel. I couldn't find any information about it online. The rind is black wax with some mold and ridges. It has "SW" imprinted on the side, so I assume that says something about Switzerland. It is a nice cream color with a greenish tint. The mouthfeel is wonderful. They were demo-ing this one day and I had to have it. It starts off milky-tasting and fruity, and then it finishes off with a nice little tangy flavor. It is delicious! It has a little it of that Gruyère-smelling stink. It is lightly salty, fruity, and also nutty. This is delicious and is my new favorite Swiss style. It doesn't stink too bad. It is really a cheese in between Swiss and Gruyère. It is mild, but also has a lot of character. It feels like it would melt really well. I tried this later and it was more pungent. I enjoyed it with a red Burgundy.
Torta del Casar Raw sheep’s
milk from Spain $15.99 lb. at
Central Market, $3.36 for a small slice. "Torta"
means "cake" in both Spanish and Italian. The shape of the cheese is cake-like. The
rind of this cheese is orange with some blue mold stripes.
The paste is thick like a reblochon and is running out the sides. It
seems to have a good consistency, though. It
smells like lettuce. It has an odd
metallic, broccoli/asparagus taste. It
is sheepy (vomity in the aftertaste) and creamy.
It is a little bitter. It
really coats the mouth. It’s good
and interesting, but also a little strong and weird.
It reminds me of a sheep taleggio. Vegetable
rennet.
Torta Mascarpone $15.99 lb. at Central Market, $3.52 for a nice slice.
Cow's milk from Italy.
It is the size of a piece of bread, wrapped in aluminum foil around the
edges, but it has been sliced. It
is a mixture of mascarpone and gorgonzola, and is supposed to be pretty sweet.
It is very soft and sticky. The
top is runny and has separated from the rind a tad.
It looks like it has layers of blue folded in here and there.
It tastes like icewater. It
is very creamy and very spreadable. As
Patrick says, it is like butter with blue cheese in it. The mascarpone has aged
more than what you buy in the tub. It
even has a bit of a blue taste to it apart from the blue.
I have had some older Mascarpone that was like that.
It is good. I would take it
to a party for a cheese spread, but I probably wouldn’t sit around eating it
by myself, though I do enjoy Mascarpone. For
a “sweet” blue cheese, I’d choose one of the soft-ripened blues.
People at the party didn’t consume it all that feverishly.
Torta Serena $18.99 at Whole Foods. $1.71 for a tiny sliver because that's all I could afford. From Extremadura in Spain. Raw wheep's milk with thistle flower instead of rennet, which infuses the cheese with fresh herbal tints. Aged for 60 days. This slice came from a small 3 lb. round. It has a semi-hard, rustic, mold-ridden rind that has scraps of bandage attached to it. The cheese smells sheepy, but also very grassy and almost fermented. The paste gets darker towards the rind, but the interior is creamy and sticky like a Taleggio. Slightly bitter and super floral. Wonderful tangy milk with a slightly bitter finish. It lingers on and on with spice and smoke (though it's not smoked.) It makes my tongue tingle and keeps me guessing. When I breathe out, I taste sheep. This is a great cheese.
Treccione, smoked
From Italy $5.99
at Wheatsville, $1.08 for a tiny chunk. This
is white/light yellow, like a low-moisture Mozzarella to the touch.
Smoky taste and flavor. A
treccia in Italian is a braid, so I guess this cheese was in the shape of a
braid at some point. Lightly smoky,
doesn’t taste like Hickory Farms, a little bitter, creamy, pasty at times, and
then there is the smoke taste, but it’s not too strong.
Peggy really likes this cheese. It
is ok, but I don’t always taste the cheese that well when it is smoked.
I think the cheese is pretty mild, and I think it probably tastes like a
mozzarella, just like the label says.
Treccione di Bufala $10.99 at Central Market. $6.92
for a big end of a loaf. This looks like the same thing as the Treccione above.
It is brown on the outside, obviously a pasta filata cheese, and very mild,
soft, and bouncy on the inside. I like this a lot. I usually don't like smoked
cheeses, but lately I have been into them. I can't tell that this is buffalo at
all. It is really good. The smoke tastes a little sweet and the cheese is mild
and tangy.
Tronchon
$9.99 lb. at Central Market.
$2.80 for a slender slice. It
is supposed to be round, with an indention in the middle of the top.
Sheep’s milk from Spain. It
definitely tapers in like it has an indention in the top, but it also has an
indention in the bottom, too. It’s
supposed to be rare. I took this to
Pam’s BBQ. I thought it was
supposed to be herby, but it was kind of plain.
It was really mild, kind of like havarti or something.
I took some home and I still couldn’t taste it much the next day.
It wasn’t bad. I just felt
like I couldn’t remember it. It
didn’t really taste strongly of sheep, either.
Trou du
Cru $3.99 for 60 g at Grapevine.
Later the price went up to $4.99 for a round. It is a washed rind in the shape of a crottin and comes in a little
cupcake wrapper. The label on top
says Fromagerie Berthaut, Epoisse, 50% mg.
It is cow cheese It is a
little sticky, semi-soft, straw-colored on the inside with a light orange rind.
Very very mild stinky foot cheese. It
is very stinky for a mild cheese. It
really smells. It has a hint of cat
pee, but not really the edginess that the cat pee stuff has.
It is creamy, salty, slightly bitter, with a little bit of an ammoniated
aftertaste. It feels like it is
going to give me bad breath. It’s
a hearty little cheese. I waited
for Grapevine to get it back in. I
was pretty intrigued by it. The
name sounds like trou du cul, “asshole” in French.
I wonder if the word play was intentional. "Trou du Cru" means
"hole of the raw," as in, doughnut hole of Epoisses. It is basically a
mini-Epoisses in the shape of a little cupcake. I tried this alongside an
Epoisses and it wasn't as runny. It also seemed to hold up to Burgundies better
than Epoisses did. The rind is intense, but I think the paste is pretty mild,
all stinkiness considered.
Toma is an Italian cheese from Piedmont region. It is a semi-hard cheese made from cow's milk. It exists in several versions depending on a period of maturation. The young cheese is sweet and milky, but if it is allowed to mature for up to 12 months, the flavour becomes more tangy, often sharp. Toma available in Britain has a soft, leathery rind and tastes fresh and creamy.
Truf $19.99 lb. at Grapevine Market, $4.80 for a lump that fills my hand. This cheese was labeled as Toma al Tartufo at Grapevine. It's made by the Caseficio dell'Alta Langa, but it is an entirely different animal. It didn't come in a big round with a bloomy rind. Instead, but rather, in a little soft, fresh wad that looked like a haphazard Crottin. It is also delicious. It has the texture of a very delicate French chèvre, but then the earthy mushroom flavors and a strong scent of sour milk. The smaller, fresher version looks like it would be flaky, but then it is creamy on the tongue. Absolutely snow white and completely unaged.This cheese is divine and I don't even really like truffles. I can't stop eating it. It is great spread on crusty bread.
Tuma dla Paja di Pecora (Toma della Paglia di Pecora). Very runny soft-ripened cheese made from sheep and cow’s milk. It was aged in dry straw and is from Piedmont, Italy. The label is in dialect, and the text, Italian. It’s fresh, white, and comes bound in a straw tie, sitting on a piece of paper. Vince showed it to me 3-4 days ago from the fridge and it was more in its shape than it is now. It’s really really runny, almost like you need to eat it with a spoon. I can’t even keep it on the knife. It drips. The rind looks like a piece of fish skin hanging off the knife and is kind of slimy. It tastes weird, bitter taste, a little bit nutty, weird earthy, definitely animal taste. Sometimes sheep has a weird aftertaste. It has a very distinctive taste for a fresh cheese. It’s not a cheese that I’d eat for breakfast. I think people at a party would think it was weird. Patrick and Brad didn’t like it. I almost feel like it would be best on some really rustic bread. It kind of has a vomit aftertaste that, I guess, is the fresh sheep. It’s not horrible, but I don’t quite understand it. It doesn’t seem creamy and buttery like the Italian site suggested. Here’s some lit on it. It won the Best Cheese award in 1997 http://www.occelli.it