Ah, Sap sago, the original green cheese! I’ll have to try it like that; I just used to grate it on noodles.
One that we got from our cheese club a few months ago that has a pretty unique look is Valencay - a tasty ash-coated goat cheese that had an interestingly distinct cured outer layer and a softer interior - as seen in this picture.
Agree that Brunost is among the more unusual cheeses that I’ve had - when I visited Norway, it seemed to be very popular as a topping for waffles, though I haven’t seen it outside of Norway (though haven’t really looked hard for it). I think it would be excellent on apple pie.
The best geitost I’ve had came from Bryk Gårdsmeieri, a local cheese producer in Trysil. It’s dark and full, almost chocolatey, with a nice saltiness to it.
Yes I found it to taste strangely like fudge.
It’s because that’s what it essentially is. Or maybe like a milk caramel or dulce de leche. It’s just boiled down whey and cream. As I said earlier in the thread, I’ve made it at home. You just cook down whey and cream until it starts caramelizing. Eventually, it forms a paste-like consistency. At this point, you just put it in a mold or container of some sort, let it cool down, it semi-solidifies and, voila, you have brunost. I guess they call it a “cheese” because it’s a way to use the whey byproduct from the cheesemaking process, I suppose? Hmmm…I wonder if you can make it with whey powder, water, and cream (although all the whey powders I’ve had have been sweetened. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten pure dehydrated whey).
Oh, I thought of another one. Hungary’s pálpusztai cheese. It’s like limburger’s stronger cousin. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve had a particularly funky batch, or if all the limburger I’ve had has been pretty mild, but I never ended up finishing the package I bought. Now it’s been 15 years since I’ve had it, and maybe my tastes have changed and it won’t be as offensive to me if I had it today, but my recollection is that it made limburger seem like a mild Muenster in comparison. Just the ammonia flavor of it was overwhelming.
And it’s odd, because otherwise, all the Hungarian cheeses I’ve had have been on the very bland side. It’s like you either get a 0 or 1 on a scale of 10 of intensity, or this “this goes to 11” cheese. This is actually the one place where I did often buy smoked cheese (Karaván cheese), just because I wanted something with flavor but not something that tastes like it should kill me.
OOOH, a Limburger-like cheese, but aged for 15 years now!!! Try it!!!
You didn’t throw it out, did you? You kept it in your cheese cave for those 15 years, right?
[quote=“Qadgop_the_Mercotan, post:1, topic:823521”]
Juusto, a finnish cheese, hard as a rock until it’s toasted! Then it softens and becomes quite savory. Good stuff!
If by this you mean leipäjuusto*, or squeaky cheese, called that because it squeaks when it is warm from the oven. My Ostrobothnian grandmother used to make it, and it’s a cherished childhood memory. Once, when I stayed at a Finland relative’s lakeside cabin in the winter, the lady of the house made it. Instead of baking it in the oven, she spread it on a wooden platter that slanted just the right amount, so that the cheese faced the fire without sliding off, and baked it on the hearth in front of the open fire. Wonderful!
*Juusto is just a generic word for cheese
It sounds like it was overripe. Smear-ripened cheeses are stinky, but they shouldn’t smell or taste strongly of ammonia. That’s what happens to a soft-ripening cheese like brie when it’s past its prime. Smear-ripening is supposed to develop funky or musty flavors, not make the cheese taste like glass cleaner.
The description here suggests to me that that is how it’s supposed to taste. At any rate, the one Hungarian who ate it with me did not seem to think anything was unusual or off about it.
Stinking Bishop, after it was featured in that Wallace & Gromit film. It was very smelly but not stunningly so; the taste and texture was kind of like Brie.
Can you hook me up with whatever website you’re getting that from, and maybe the name of the producer?
this thread makes me want to have a cheese cave ……
I’ll answer, as I believe she ordered it from the source I suggested.
Cedar Valley cheese of Belgium, WI: http://www.cedarvalleycheesestore.com/
They currently have elder cheddars ranging from 3 to 19 years old, but their oldest swiss is only 4 years old. Yummy though. They briefly had 9 year old, which was divine, but is now just a memory.
Lovely place to browse, always free samples of 5-10 different cheeses, varied daily.
Schultz’s Cheese in Beaver Dam, WI schultzscheese.com also has elder cheddars around age 18 and a nice variety of other stuff. Not sure how old their swiss is.
widmerscheese.com in Theresa, WI also carries older cheddars that are made on site, tho not so old as the other two places.
Those are my three faves for elder cheddars locally. I of course also make the rounds of local cheese factories in my area, such as Gibbsville cheese of Gibbsville, and Sartori in Plymouth, WI. The much loved Beechwood cheese factory closed down not long ago. I still have a few samples of their cheddars, getting slowly more chronologically gifted in my collection.
If you’re in Plymouth, check out the Cheese Counter and Dairy Heritage center there: cheesecapitaloftheworld.com
And if you’re in Wisconsin, make sure to take the time to smell our dairy air!
I misspelled, it’s Bryn Gårdsmeieri.
They also have some other really nice cheeses btw. And really good prim, sort of a spreadable brunost.
I also loved geitost, but got it only when I was in Denmark. One cheese I haven’t seen mentioned is vacherin. You can get it in season only in French Switzerland and they don’t export any. It is a soft, almost runny cheese and very tasty. There are several local cheeses made in Quebec. One is oka, from the eponymous monastery, but more recently they have been making cheddar type cheeses with wood ash around them and they are truly wonderful and our local supermarket carries them. I don’t recall any name though.
Brunost is a pleasure. I’m very fond of Delice de Bourgogne, which is a triple cream cheese I like more than a lot of other soft cheeses. There’s a gouda that’s sort of flaky and makes my mouth hurt in a good way–Old Amsterdam (maybe aged gouda?).
I picked up both Double Gloucester and Idiazabal the other day! I must say I enjoy the DG quite a bit. It’s definitely NOT cheddar, in a way that’s rather difficult to articulate, but easy to appreciate.
I plan to crack open the Idiazabal sometime over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Okay, this thread has got me convinced. Sometime within the next couple-three weeks, I am going to finally try Limberger or Liederkranz cheese. I’ve no excuse not to: there are two dedicated cheese shops (cheeseries? fromageries? quesadelicatessens?) that are an easy bus trip from my home, and even Safeway up the street has a wide selection of luxurious imported cheese. My tastes, alas, were ever prone to outstrip my budget.
Just don’t open them on the bus!