So which beautiful gems du fromage did we walk out with? A couple french ones that you'll just have to wait for (oooo suspense!) and a blended cheese called The Huntsman. Yep. I didn't make that up, it's really a cheese that has a hearty, masculine nickname... it cracked me up. And from that you'd think it would look dark and earthy, with chunks of something manly like pot roast in it or something. Well, no. Honestly, this cheese looks kind of awkward, and you know me, I think the awkward things are always the cutest, and those are the ones I bring home. Here's what it looks like:
The Huntsman is a blend of Double Gloucester and Blue Stilton, from Long Clawson Dairy in Leicestershire, England. Long Clawson was started in 1911 (that's a century of cheesemaking!) and is renowned for its Stilton. What a lucky find! They specialize in Stiltons, making many types and flavors of it as well as creating unique blends with other cheeses and fruits. Genius! Steve Jenkins actually mentions them in The Cheese Primer as one of the 4 (that's right, 4) excellent Stilton makers in the world. So if you see Clawson Stilton, pick some up. Here's their website: Long Clawson Dairy
Let's get back to The Huntsman. It has alternating stripes of the bright orange Double Gloucester and the white and blue from the Stilton, so it is a bright, colorful cheese. Clawson dairy takes the whole traditional wheel of Double Gloucester and slices it, alternates the slices with hand formed slices of it's famous Blue Stilton, and creates a new wheel of The Huntsman. They have also trademarked this cheese, so you know you're getting the real thing when you see it. Since this is the first time we've had either Double Gloucester or Blue Stilton, we decided to try them separately and then together to get the full effect.
First, the DG. Like I said, it's bright orange (probably dyed for the "cheddar" effect - see note below) and firm, just a bit softer than cheddar. Double Gloucester is traditionally a whole milk farmhouse cheese, made from milk from 2 different milkings (the evening of day 1 and the morning of day 2). At first I thought it was a variety of cheddar, but it's not. It's its own cheese, but it is often compared to cheddar - probably because cheddar is nearly universally recognizable, and they have a lot of similarities. Honestly, I agree with Steve Jenkins that it is a little bland, like very mild cheddar. Not much attitude, not much to remember. Alan and I noticed that it did have a tremendously bitter aftertaste, which totally overpowered its mild, mellow flavor.
Now for the Stilton. Stilton is England's only name-protected cheese, so you know it's authentic. It appears as a traditional blue cheese, with fuzzy specks of the roqueforti mold throughout. Its smell hit me like a truck - like rank dirty feet - and Alan went nuts for it. He described it as "strong and sweet- a mix of cherries and dirty socks." Yuck! I could barely get the stuff in my mouth, I was gagging so badly. The bite was so strong and sour, and it lingered in my mouth for much too long. I kept trying to identify this flavor that Alan was bonkers for, but all I tasted was ashes or charcoal. Very unpleasant. Imagine charcoal with vinegar and lemon juice. After a couple tries, I was done. It was way too strong for me. Of course, it's supposed to taste delectable, like spicy, rich and creamy honey, tobacco and molasses. Believe me, that's not what I get from it.
So, individually, we were unimpressed. The Gloucester was too mild, one boring note, and the Stilton was overpowering. Even though Alan loved it, he couldn't keep eating it straight. However, those guys at Clawson know their stuff, because together, they were incredible. Perfectly balanced, creamy, salty and just the right amount of sharpness. Like baby bear, JUST right. I could actually taste layers of flavor, including earthy, salty, a little sweetness and fruitiness like apple and citrus. Wow. The two cheeses balanced each other out so perfectly, I couldn't believe I was eating the same thing as before. It could have been a meal in itself, with some bread and vegetables, because yes, it turned out to be very rich and hearty and filling as the name suggests, even though it comes across like a mamby pamby cheese at first. I even saw a recipe to melt it over some steak, and man, that would be a worthy Huntsman meal. I'm looking forward to find some more products from Clawson, because I think they have a knack for blending.
We got really lucky stumbling upon this one, but making cheese decisions is turning out to be pretty difficult. Feel free to send us some suggestions of your favorite cheeses that we should seek out, and try some of these along with us. We'd love to hear what you think of them too!
-Ashleigh
*Coloring Agents: the cheddar effect: Most companies add organic dyes to their cheese starters to create a uniformly healthy look to the end product. Cheese used to turn out this way naturally because of the Vitamin D the cows got from their grass and other grazing goodies in the summer, but cheese from winter milkings was noticeably whiter. Nowadays, since most diary cows are fed feed from silos year round, most cheeses naturally come out white, even though they don't taste much different from their naturally orange summer counterparts. Since cheesemakers want the cheese to be uniform and recognizable for the consumer (you recognize that cheddar is traditionally supposed to be orange, so you look for that when you shop), they add harmless dyes in the beginning of the cheese process. It's very common, sometimes it just ends up looking a little too fluorescent to be real. Just so you know. (Source: The Cheese Primer p. 6)
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