The Cheese Chasers!

Stumbled on this old Merrie Melodies cartoon, which just happens to be titled "The Cheese Chasers" - it's hilarious. And there's cheese in it. Enjoy!

Old Amsterdam Aged Gouda

In an effort to keep this blog user friendly and searchable, we will split up our blog entries per cheese. Huzzah!! And so...

...the evening continued with the unveiling of the second cheese of the night: Old Amsterdam brand aged Gouda. I was apprehensive of this well-known cheese, with vivid memories of the stink of smoked gouda at my childhood breakfast table. I never cared for the smoked variety - it reminds me of old fish and socks. I figured I would try the non-smoked variety, so we grabbed some Old Amsterdam Aged Gouda at Trader Joe's (which has a good variety of cheeses, by the way).

The cheese:

Aged Gouda is a firm, light orange cheese native to the Netherlands made chiefly from cow's milk. It is typically aged for at least 2 years in a humidity controlled environment.  The Cheese Primer describes its taste as having a "scotch whiskey aroma, both sharp and sweet at the same time, like molten honey or butterscotch." Hmm...those are some pretty specific flavors. Note the cloud of skepticism forming around me.

The Cheese Primer explains that plain old gouda is "one of the most unexciting cheeses imaginable." Aged Gouda, however, "is a truly delicious thing, almost totally divorced from the blandness of its youth." Wow! Sounds like a party in my mouth! Can't wait to sink my jowls into this sucker!

The verdict:

Wow! The party in my mouth turned out to be more like a gag-fest. The cheese is very creamy, and has a certain gritty texture to it - weird characteristics to occur together. Aged gouda reminded me of old, unwashed hats, with a sickly-sweet taste that permeates your nostrils. It made me cringe immediately.

Ashleigh loved it, the ridiculous girl. Why?! How???! She ate half the block of cheese herself! Good. The less of this putrid hunk of "cheese" there is in the house at any one time, the better.

She described the flavor as "warm and spicy," but had trouble being more specific. She mentioned nutmeg as something she was reminded of when eating Aged Gouda.

All in all, Aged Gouda went over fairly well with our guests Andrew and Kelli. Andrew insisted it tasted like cheddar. Everything tastes like freaking cheddar to this guy. Watermelon tastes like cheddar to him.

Ashleigh insists on mentioning that Aged Gouda also made the cover of the Cheese Primer, for some strange reason. This might mean that the author/publishers seem to be extra fond of it, perhaps as a result of eating some tainted cheese just before publishing. I don't like it. Ashleigh loves it. You be the judge.

Here's a link to the makers of the Aged Gouda we bought.
Old Amsterdam Gouda

Mmmm... Mimolette!

We had some special guests at cheese tasting tonight! Please welcome Andrew and Kelli to the CCC for some yummy cheese-centered play-by-play.

So, after a day of a disappointing strawberry festival (who has a STRAWBERRY festival with ONE strawberry vendor? And nearly 100 other vendors? Arroyo Grande, CA, that's who. Schmucks.), we picked up some more cheese at Trader Joe's and sat around our dining room table trying out a group-style cheese tasting! Meet our friends Andrew and Kelli:  Andrew is camping out in our spare bedroom for a few months until he leaves to become a drill instructor for the Air Force, so he will probably frequent the Shteinberg-Botts Tasting Room until then. And Kelli is Alan's life raft at work, providing much needed comic relief when the world caves in on their office... which is nearly every day. Poor Alan.  

Now, Kelli and Andrew are just as new to cheese as we are, so we conned them into trying the new stuff we bought, as well as the Gruyere we tried the other day.  Our featured cheeses of the night: French Mimolette and Aged Gouda (we'll cover the Gouda in Part 2 of this post, because Alan's having a fit over here about putting 2 cheeses in the same entry... ahhh love).  We haven't made it very far into our book yet, so we still didn't know what we were buying when we bought it. But I convinced Alan to put down the really stinky moldy nasty ones he wanted to buy, and get some that looked a little bit safer. It's only a matter of time until that trick stops working...

Let's get down to the cheese! 

The Cheese: Isigny Sainte-Mere Mimolette (And, yes,  you must say it with a french accent at all times).  Hohn-hohn-hohn Baguette!!

We got lucky AGAIN. Isigny Sainte-Mere is one of the few brands of Mimolette that The Cheese Primer recommends in both France and the US! And it doesn't stop there- on the Isigny-Sainte-Mere website (posted below, and yes, the website is in French, so you might want to recruit someone who can speak the language... or at least muddle through it like I did) you can find the types of Mimolette they sell, organized by how long they have been aged. We managed to get our hands on their "Extra-Vieille" variety, which, directly translated means "Extra Old" (yum) and is guaranteed to be aged at least 18 months. In Cheeseland, older is usually better, so go us! We got the oldest cheese we could, on accident!

Mimolette is a hard bright orange cheese. It's nearly fluorescent! It has a waxy texture and it looks like orange-flavored hard candy.  That plays weird tricks on your brain, let me tell you. 

Mimolette is made in Normandy, in northern France. It is famous for being Charles De Gaulle's favorite cheese, but Steven Jenkins doesn't seem to love it very much. He says "Mimolette is one of the blandest cheeses you'll ever taste" - poor Mimolette!

I didn't think it was bland at all. It was very sharp and salty, and I definitely taste a sour milk flavor that (and I'm shocking myself even as I write this) wasn't entirely unenjoyable.  It's pretty much how I always wish my macaroni and cheese tasted, full of cheesy flavor! 

Alan said he could taste a tangy sourness like yogurt, and that it's sharp like Cheddar.  Kelli didn't like this one much, and Andrew thought everything tasted like Cheddar.  Now, Andrew is a wine connoisseur, and is really good at picking out the complex flavors in wine. Don't be fooled, all you wine tasters -  it looks like having a palette for wine doesn't prepare you for cheese!

The Verdict:

Alan: Mimolette is  a good substitute for Cheddar, if you feel like trying something different.

Ashleigh: I might grate some onto my macaroni and cheese...

Keep in mind, it's probably going to be a few bucks more than Cheddar. 

We also learned a valuable cheese lesson tonight. Don't eat cold cheese. It might sound weird, since it needs to be refrigerated. But, it is advised, and we now know from personal experience, to let your cheese come to room temperature before sinking your teeth into it. When cheese is cold, it has very little flavor, but coming to room temperature allows it to "wake up" in a sense... We revisited the Gruyere with Kelli and Andrew, and we tasted it as soon as we took it out of the refrigerator. I actually liked it then... I didn't taste any of the nail polish remover taste, and I thought maybe I was already seeing my palette develop. But, after 20 minutes, I tried it again, and yup, it was all acetone. YUCK. So, the moral of the story is don't munch on the cheese as soon as you take it out. Show some restraint, and wait for the flavor to come back. Also, your palette won't mature overnight. It's apparently going to take time for that... maybe I can stretch out putting off the stinky bleu cheeses for a while longer after all ;-)


Click Here to check out Isigny Sainte-Mere Mimolette

We would love you to try some of these cheeses with us and post what you think of them! And feel free to send us any requests and or suggestions!

Stay tuned for Part 2 of tonight's tasting, featuring Aged Gouda!


-Ashleigh

Grand Cru Gruyere

Gruyere!!! Our first cheese! 

Traditionally, this is a Swiss cow's milk cheese popular in fondue recipes. The texture resembles white American cheese: it's smooth, no cracks or holes, and the cheese is soft but not oozy. 

According to Steve Jenkins and "The Cheese Primer," "Gruyere is one of the truly great cheeses of the world." We'll be honest, we picked this cheese at random, at our local grocery store because it sounded fancy. Furthermore, there apparently is a whole lotta crappy Gruyere cheese circulating about. It's a cheap version of the real deal, similar to processed American cheese. We lucked out in that we happened to pick one of the better brands of American-made Gruyere. Enough talking, let's eat some cheese!

The Cheese: Roth Kase brand Grand Cru Gruyere

We both agreed that this cheese is pretty mild. It's not salty or sharp. It has a strong initial smell of raw unprocessed peanut butter for some reason, and it tastes "nutty" too. Ashleigh insists she tastes bitter walnuts. *Note: she dislikes nuts too. After a few seconds the cheese begins to soften on the tongue and the nuttiness gives way to something else, but we can't figure out what the hell it is exactly. According to Ashleigh, this aftertaste is reminiscent of nail polish remover. Yum!!

Let's consult Mr. Jenkins. He says the Gruyere should "have assertive flavor with hints of fruits and nuts." Maybe the nail polish remover taste is a clue to our primitive palettes....sheesh.

The Verdict

Ashleigh: "It was good! We'll have to try it in fondue."

Alan: "Why does it smell like peanut butter in here??"

Here's a link to the website for this cheese:

Roth Kase Grand Cru Gruyere

- Alan.

Oh, the cheeses we'll eat!

Let me begin by explaining where we currently stand in the world o' cheese. I love cheese. I love eating it, smelling it, shopping for it, and learning about it. My knowledge of cheese is rather limited, and when I shop for cheese the conversation with the cheese counter people goes something like this:


Me: (smelling a cheese, heartily) "Mmm...gimme a lump of this stuff. How do you pronounce this? Row-kew-fort?"
Cheese counter person: "It's Roquefort"
Me: (still sniffing at various cheeses): "Delicious. Rowkewfort."


My poor girlfriend and co-author of this blog has a very different stance on cheese (currently at least). When I bring home the aforementioned lump of miscellaneous smelly stuff she is typically gagging and whimpering before I can unwrap the plastic. I have tortured her with the raucous odors of many-a-stinky-cheese for a long time now, but she has graciously agreed to dive into this project and freaking eat some cheese finally. Geeeez!! What took you so long?!?!


And so, without further ado. May I present. Cheese.


- Alan

Fromage! Kase! Formaggio!

So, "The Cheese Primer" (Steve Jenkins) came in the mail today. We ordered it at my brother-in-law Pat's recommendation (Hi Pat!!), and he just so happens to be a fantastic chef and cheese expert. The Cheese Primer is a book with descriptions and explanations of the cheeses of the world, how they are made and their histories.


Let's be clear, Alan and I are not cheese experts. We aren't even cheese novices - we're more like cheese zeros, starting at the very very beginning. But, Alan has a fascination with the stinky stuff, and I'll admit that it is intriguing, in a disgusting sort of way. So, we decided to take this experimental journey through the world of cheese, hoping to develop our palettes and our understanding of this "formidable food substance" (Alan's term, not mine), all the while documenting our hilarious experiences. Hence, the Cheese Chaser blog.


Hopefully, my feelings about cheese will evolve away from the disgust, because I've heard that it's a very interesting and complex science. It can only improve from here, because my start point is gagging.

As of now, we don't really have a game plan, except to explore the cheese counters of our favorite stores with our mouths open. We will refer to The Cheese Primer for guidance and give accounts of our own impressions as well... which will be ridiculous at best.  It looks like this will be a stinky journey, but we're up for it! Thanks for joining us!

Here's a link to the fantastic cheese encyclopedia we'll be using:

THE CHEESE PRIMER by Steve Jenkins

-Ashleigh