DLux, you’ve never sampled limburger?? I’m surprised. It’s pretty ubiquitous. Well here in Wisconsin, anyway. I like the flavor, but the smell sure clears a room.
I am chomping my way thru a wedge of stilton myself at the moment. I never thought it was particularly funky, just tasty. But the Mrs. confirms it as a ‘stinky’ cheese, and she’s virtually anosmic (can’t smell worth a damn) so I guess . . .
I need to try Port Salut, for sure.
I don’t consider either limburger or stilton uncommon. You can find either in any cheese shop, and stilton is considered to be one of the world’s great cheeses.
Limburger’s famous (infamous?) smell comes from the fact that it’s smear-ripened. That is, the exterior is smeared with a bacterial culture that produces odors similar to stinky feet (it’s actually the same chemical compounds that cause the smells). Muenster goes through a similar ripening process (not the stuff that’s typically sold as muenster in American stores, but actual French muenster, which is a soft-ripening cheese). The only cheese I’ve ever tasted that was too strong for me was a muenster. Limburger is mild by comparison.
Stilton is not nearly as stinky as the truly stinky cheeses. It’s not really stinky at all. I don’t know why Qadgop the Mercotan’s wife thinks it is. Maybe she has special smell receptors that are tuned for stilton. Maybe Qadgop had an overripe piece.
I wouldn’t call any of the cheeses I’ve had rare or difficult to obtain.
I bought this once, a long time ago. I liked the flavor, but it was very sweet, like caramel, so I couldn’t really figure out what to do with it. I suppose it would be good on a dark-bread toast. But I now am on a low-carb diet, so very sweet cheese and bread is not something I’m going to do very often.
This is one of my “regular” cheeses. If I’m invited to a party, I take a wheel of it ($20) and it’s usually well-appreciated. Nothing better on a baguette slice.
I’ve occasionally had an aged gouda. I like it, but I don’t go out of my way to get it.
Montgomery’s Cheddar is great. It’s getting harder to find, but Neal’s Yard’s Keen’s Cheddar and Quicke’s Cheddar are very similar.
Right now my favorite cheddar is actually from Trader Joe—Unexpected Cheddar.
There are stinkier cheeses. To me, Limburger is very much like a French Munster, but I prefer the Limburger. I like it.
Nitpick: The French cheese is Munster, not Muenster
Eh they’re both from Münster, but the English convention is to convert the diacritics to ue to (somewhat) preserve pronunciation, the French to just drop it. In other words, you can’t always assume which type someone means solely based on spelling.
It’s pretty standard that the soft French cheese is spelled Munster and the semi-firm German-American cheese is spelled Muenster.
Munster in Alsatia, France, is not the same city as Münster in Westphalia, Germany.
(The French spelling actually preserves the pronunciation—German ü is pronounced like French u—[y] in IPA)
You beat me to Stinking Bishop! It’s quite scarce around here and I’ve only seen it in one specialty store and only occasionally. And while I think it’s correct to say that the “stinking” moniker originally referred to the bishop’s personality and not the cheese, it is in fact very odiferous, in my view. In fact I heard an interview some time ago with the proprietor of the UK cheesemaker who produces the stuff, and he said something to the effect that he sticks to that name so that people know what to expect – “I wouldn’t want someone to order it and then get quite cross with me [when they smelled it!]”. It’s quite expensive and the stinkiness is a bit of an acquired taste, so I wouldn’t be buying a lot of it even if it was readily available.
On the opposite side of the scale, Vieux Pané is one of my old wine-and-cheese standbys – a mild soft cheese with distinctive but gentle pungency. In terms of common cheeses, Oka is one of my current favorites – semi-soft and mild with a hint of pungent character. Smoked Jarlsberg is also excellent.
The World Cheese Award just finished in Bergen.
Several TONS of cheese had to be thrown away after the event… 
EU regulations… Only the Norwegian cheeses could be given away to charity.
Smoked ANYTHING is usually excellent. 
But then, I don’t have a good palate so subtleties are often lost on me.
… so no sources for oscypek in the U.S. at all? pulykamell I think you have Polski krew and might know?
I get tons of the stuff around here, but I’m actually not sure it’s genuine oscypek. They call it that (or I should say, my relatives call it that when they have it on the table–I don’t know exactly how its marketed), but from what I read, genuine oscypek is somewhat hard to come by. My folks just brought some back from Poland a month ago. I’m actually not a huge fan of smoked cheeses, to be honest. I like smoked meats and all that kind of stuff, but I prefer my cheese unsmoked. But, yeah, at my local Polish deli/grocery, you will find oscypek-style cheeses. I’ll check next time to see what they’re called. It might be gołka (a smoked cow’s milk cheese from the area), or just called “highlander cheese” or something like that to avoid the oscypek/oszczypek name, which is protected, at least in the EU, from my understanding.
Because they’re not EU? Or just a local thing? Looks like there was a lot of US cheese there, and some Canada et al.
A bit off topic, but goats’ milk butter is very flavorful.
I often wonder if cheese makers decide to smoke the batch that didn’t turn out good enough to sell otherwise.
In that case, blessed are the cheesemakers!!
I like strong blue cheeses like Stilton. So, based mostly on cartoons, I once decided to try some Limburger. Like others have recounted above, when I opened the package I was assaulted with a totally unexpected stench like really bad body odor. I couldn’t even bring myself to taste it. It took weeks to completely eliminate the odor from my kitchen. Wikipedia says that the bacteria used to ferment Limburger is “Brevibacterium linens, the same one found on human skin that is partially responsible for body odor and particularly foot odor.” So if you want to imagine what Limburger smells like, wear a pair of socks for a week and then smell them.
My Rush Creek Reserve is out for delivery as I type. We’ll be having it with some Lomo de Bellota, a chunk of Duck Liver Mousse with Cognac, and an Eggplant salad so we can say we had some veggies.
Oh, and a bottle of Champagne.
If the election turns against us, we’ll at least be eating well.
You know what, I actually misunderstood. Only the cheeses, from within EU and Schengen (I think), that didn’t actually enter the contest has been given away. Apparently all cheese made outside of EU has to be thrown away as per EU regulations, which I assume also applies to Schengen countries too, it can’t be sold or given away afterwards. Because of how the cheese was handled during the event, with regards to obscuring the identity of the cheeses, everything from everywhere got all mixed up. Instead of trying to figure out whats what (I’d happily volunteer!) they’re sending off two to three tons of the best cheeses in the world as refuse to be burned for district heating…
I was over at the supermarket, and what they sold was indeed labeled as “oscypek.” There was not much information on the label, other that it was oscypek, the English designation as “highlander smoked cheese” and “Product of Poland.” No ingredients or any way to tell if it conforms to the true regulations (there are a number of requirements: it must be made from at least 60% sheeps milk, 600-800g, and only produced between April and October, among other things.)
I’m not an expert on it, and even a lot of the stuff in Polish is supposedly fake or passed off as “oscypek”, when it does not conform to standards. So even though I’ve had versions of it all my life, I wouldn’t know which would conform to the current EU standards on it, and which didn’t. There definitely was a range of flavors and textures among the various oscypeks I’ve tried. Some more heavily smoked, some much firmer, some saltier, some tangier.
But, otherwise, it had the traditional shape and looked like something I would instantly identify as “oscypek.” The exterior of the cheese was a bit paler than I’m used to, though, so this particular producer’s variety didn’t seem to be as smoked as the versions I’m used to. It still had a golden hue, but I’m used to more amber, perhaps even brown in parts.
Sap sago: I didn’t see this listed by anyone but I’m bad at seeing everything. It is extremely hard. When grated it is a dust that is added to softened butter. It is glorious on bread with roasted garlic and/or roast beef.
Smoked gouda is always welcome.
My general strategy when buying soft cheese is to choose one that is so soft that the wrapping is oozing around. The creaminess is just so wonderful.
Yet another useful reason to own a decent long-range private jet! Henry Ford II used to fly to Europe and stuff his plane full of artworks – I’d be content with cheeses, and a few munchies from Fauchon. 