The Huntsman- the baby bear of cheese

Alan and I hovered over the cheese counter in El Rancho Marketplace for much too long yesterday, trying to choose a cheese might be interesting and also delicious. We wanted to buy one of each delicious little wedge in the counter, since we've been cheeseless for 2 weeks, but we finally walked out with only a handful of cheeses.  Yes, a handful. We downsized to a handful. I think we need some help with the decisionmaking process.

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)

Cambozola!!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls - I think we have a new favorite cheese (for now at least). Let me introduce you to my new friend, goes by the name Cambozola.

Cambozola is a strange little cheese - a bit confused, he can't seem to decide if he's a camembert or a gorgonzola (hence the name, a combination of the two). He is also a ridiculously delicious, creamy, blue-cheesy, soft-ripened little fella with tons of flavor and buttery goodness to spread over everything.

As it turns out, Cambozola is fairly young as cheeses go: it was created around the turn of the 20th century and only began being mass produced and marketed to the world in the 1970's. As of right now, there is only one major company responsible for sharing this cheesy treasure with the rest of the world: Käserei Champignon, apparently a giant German cheese conglomerate. The entire website below is in German, so I could be incredibly wrong about all of this; my knowledge of the German language is limited to what I learned from Blazing Saddles. Shnitzengruben!! 

Ok, here's the website for you German speakers: Cambozola: The Website (in German).

And now for the best part, the eating!

I tried the Cambozola cold, right out of the fridge, which goes against everything we've learned about cheese thus far. I couldn't help it, it looked so inviting: off white, creamy, with little flecks of blue Penicillium roqueforti mold (the best kind of mold!). The cold, buttery cheese melted in my mouth instantly and tasted of super fresh young mushrooms, with strong undertones of the typical blue cheese bite. 


As it warmed, the flavor intensified and I was smitten. I have to find more of this stuff. Thankfully, they sell it at Albertson's, and Trader Joe's. I wonder if there are any artisan varieties out there...  


Ashleigh took a bite and her eyes went wide. "Oh!" she said, with a very surprised look on her face. I think she was expecting a more pronounced blue-cheese flavor, but the buttery brie style of the cheese threw her off. It's good, ain't it little Ashers? 


Mr. Steve Jenkins of the Cheese Primer doesn't seem to be a fan though, saying this cheese "has little character and goes against everything I believe in." Oh Steve, surely you can stray from your rigid standards of fromage-ness just this once, just this once! Try it again, try it by the spoonful, cold, right out of the fridge. Go against everything you believe in and eat more Cambozola!

Valdeon - The Scariest Cheese Alive! Literally!!

Howdy everyone, and happy Cheese Friday! In this post we'll finally be sampling some of the funky stuff Ashleigh's been dreading (and I've been dreaming of). Our cheese of the moment: Queso De Valdeon! Here's what it looks like:

They say a picture is worth a thousand words - I can almost smell this one.

A buddy of ours picked some up from C'est Cheese in Santa Barbara, one of the finest cheese shops around!

First, a brief history lesson.

This cheese hails from the mysterious and often overlooked cheese-riddled country of Spain, specifically the northwestern region of Leon. People there seem to have a fondness for mighty cheeses, as evidenced by the intensely flavored Valdeon and its relatives Cabrales and Picon (I've never heard of these cheeses either - we'll keep our eyes open for them). 

The cheese is typically made of cow's milk, but I keep reading that it may also be a blend of various milks. A blend of various milks - that's a strange concept. Think about it. Milks. From different animals.  Mixed together. Weird.

Once the typical cheese-making process is underway, the cheese wheel is injected with mold spores. Yup, fungus. Specifically, a member of the Penicillium genus. Yup, Penicillium. As in penicillin. As in antibiotics. 

After a date with some fungus spores, the cheese is wrapped in sycamore leaves for some reason. My sources say this is for flavor. Does anyone know what sycamore tastes like? Trees? Banana bread? I have no idea. 

Inoculated and draped in sycamore, the young Valdeon is left to age in caves. Again with the caves? I gotta find some caves - there'll probably be some cheese waiting for me inside. 

Ok, enough about fungus and caves and milk mixtures - let's eat some cheese!!

The verdict:

I freaking love this cheese. It's everything I hoped it would be, from the pungent smell that fills the house once you cut it to the punch-you-in-the-face flavor. And, oh, the flavor. It's like spicy, mushroomy, peppery dirt. It melts in your mouth into a puddle of ridiculousness. There are few cheeses that could possibly taste like this. I'm sure everyone has had blue cheese before, well maybe not real artisanal blue cheese - anyway, that is the closest thing I can compare Valdeon to. Only turned up to 11.  

Ashleigh wanted nothing to do with my poor Valdeon. She had a hard time entering the room when I was cutting it, and fled squeaking with horror as I offered her a taste. After a few days she finally mustered up the courage to try a piece - and regretted every second of it. I think she cried a little.

Bottom line: this is it folks - the strongest flavored cheese you are most likely to encounter on your cheese journey. Be forewarned, it is not for the squeamish or the faint of taste buds. Don't be afraid of the grayish-blue fuzz visibly growing inside the cheese. That's the magic growing inside. And you won't need any shots from the doctor for a few months!

**Disclaimer: Alan is not a doctor. By eating Valdeon or ANY blue-veined cheese you are in no way, shape, or form exempt from your regularly scheduled vaccinations.