My wife just ordered some goat cheese pizza. It got me to thinking, there’s a ton of different ‘cow’ cheeses - chedder, gouda, swiss, etc, etc.
Isn’t goat milk and cow milk pretty much the same stuff? Why isn’t there a ton of different goat cheeses? We don’t just order cow cheese pizza. How come there’s just (supposedly) one kind of goat cheese?
I’ve always wondered that myself. It drive me nuts. I mean, at work, when someone asks me for “goat cheese” I just hand them a log of Chevrie and they happily take it. But we also carry Monterrey Jack made with goat’s milk and a few others.
I’ve had goat brie, and IMHO it’s very tasty.
There are a lot of different kinds of goat cheeses, ranging from feta through cheeses like Chevrie and even into firm cheeses. I think, when people refer to “goat cheese” they generally are thinking about a soft, white Chevrie-style cheese, and that’s what is usually offered on menus. I think it’s a combination of poor marketing from other goat cheese varieties, ignorance of the existence of other products by consumers and accepted shorthand.
Moving to Cafe Society from GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
[nitpick]It’s chèvre.[/nitpick]
Yes, there are many different kinds of goat milk cheese, ranging from fresh cheeses like chevre to blue cheese to hard, ripened and aged cheese (you can find goat cheddar if you look for it.) When somebody generically looks for “goat cheese,” I presume them to mean a soft, fresh cheese like chevre. There doesn’t seem to be as much variety in the goat cheeses generally available as there are ewe and cow cheeses.
WAG-goats don’t produce anywhere near as much milk as cows and there is less demand in general for goat milk. Therefore the volume of milk available to produce cheese is less.
Goat milk also has a much different PH and inherent taste than cow’s milk. It’s more acidic and “gamey”.
I have to ask: was it reindeer goat cheese pizza?