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)

What we thought was Brie...

Today, Alan and I decided to explore the world of Brie... or what we thought was Brie.  We were in Solvang, CA, and since we still had money left over in our cheese budget after we bought a great cheese board, we were on the hunt for cheese! While Vinhus (where we found the board) had a pretty impressive cheese counter, most of them were too strong for me (bleus and camembert) or were American made cheeses (and we're trying to focus on European imports since we're so new to it. I'm sure there are a lot of great American cheese artisans, but we're just not there yet.), so our journey continued.

We went to the local natural food market, El Rancho Marketplace, and discovered that they had a great, well-cared for cheese counter! What stood out to us was their selection of Brie: there were at least 8 of them, all imports except for one. Both of us have had Brie before; it's fairly popular in restaurants and at cheese counters, so we thought it would be fun to buy a couple of different brands and compare them. The ones we picked were St. Andre and Fromager d'Affinois.

And it's a good thing we approached it that way.  Bear with me through this short educational introduction. In the chapter of The Cheese Primer that discusses Brie, it explains that the term "brie" is not legally protected. There is a french board that protects the rights to the names of cheeses, similar to patents and licensing in the US. Only 2 types of Brie have been protected under this board, Brie de Meaux and Brie de Melun, neither of which you can really find in the US, with the exception of a few good brands. That may not seem very important, but what it means is any old cheese can call itself Brie, regardless of how and where it's made and what it tastes like, but only cheeses that are made in a specific area of France and by a specific process can call themselves Brie de Meaux or Brie de Melun.

That means, we Americans may be eating a lot of phony Bries without ever knowing it, especially since Brie is a pretty hip cheese right now - you KNOW you've been in a restaurant and heard those hipsters in the booth next to you talking about how they're so sophisticated because Brie is their favorite cheese!

So, why were there so many Bries laying around this cheese counter in El Rancho? Let me tell you. They weren't Brie. And neither were the two that we bought today. The store-printed deli label may say Brie, and the actual cheese label from the manufacturer may say Brie, but what it REALLY is (unless it says Brie de Meaux or Brie de Melun) is a Double-Creme or Triple-Creme Soft-ripened cheese. This was really confusing for Alan and me, but I did a lot of research and it sounds to me like the overarching category is Soft-ripened cheese (which includes Double- and Triple-cremes, and Paglia cheeses... more on those when we come to them), and that the two Bries are types of Double-creme Soft-ripened cheese.  That doesn't mean they're the ONLY double-cremes.  Got all that?

Now we can move onto the cheeses we had today. Yum!  Here we go: St. Andre and Fromager d'Affinois.

Both of these cheese are considered double-cremes, because they have between 60-75% butterfat. To achieve this, extra cream is added to the cheese before it becomes curd, resulting in a creamy and silky finish once it is formed and aged. A triple-creme must have over 75% butterfat (oh vey!), making it even silkier. According to Steven Jenkins, true triple-cremes are very rare. St. Andre had 70% butterfat, and Fromager d'Affinois had 60%.

Both of these cheeses are off-white, and look like regular old Philadelphia cream cheese, if it had a rind. They are soft and spreadable, and don't give off any kind of pungent odor. They are both cows milk cheeses.  Overall, we had a pleasant first impression. The similarities end there, though.

St. Andre had a consistency very similar to cream cheese, and tasted like it too. It was slightly more mild than cream cheese, though, and was a little heavier and more buttery. Alan and I both loved it.  We didn't taste anything crazy in this one like we have been, no nuts or fruits or armpits.  Just clean, fresh cream cheese.

Fromager d'Affinois was also delightful, but very much its own animal. It was surprisingly silky, like almost-melted butter.  This was impressive, because it has the characteristics of a triple-creme, even though it only has the minimal amount of butterfat to be considered a double!

Naturally, I did some research. I found another fantastic source, the PFI Cheese Library. According to their website, its qualities mimic that of a triple-creme because the milk is "ultra-filtered" before it is made into curd, making it very smooth.  It also had an intense butter flavor, like the artificial butter spray. Or, if you've ever stuck your fingers in a stick of butter and ate it (yes, I have) then you know that flavor. It was a little too strong to eat by itself, but on a cracker it was fantastic. We loved this one too.

The verdict:
Alan: They were both delicious, and are the best ones we've had so far. It's strange that they are so closely related, but are vastly different.
Ashleigh: They are nice and safe, great for beginning cheese hounds.  I love that they are creamy and not scary. But, we still have to find some real Brie.

Here's a photo of our happy cheese board, complete with the two cheeses of the night and our accompaniments, pears and salami!  

Left: Fromager d'Affinios, Right: St. Andre. Accompaniments: Pear and Salami

Have a great day, and happy cheese hunting!

-Ashleigh