Yay Toast! (Gjetost)

I often find myself thinking about the cheeses of Norway.

Okay, I have never thought about Norwegian cheese - I didn't even know they made cheese up there. Norway is in the Arctic, right? Cheese doesn't grow in the arctic, only in the antarctic. No, that's penguins.

I <3 penguins.

I digress.

On another one of our cheese-scouting adventures, Ash and I travelled back to Vinhus in Solvang, CA (despite our previous wohwoh experience there a few months earlier involving some serious ammonia stench). It seems they cleaned up a bit - the overwhelming smell of death-fish was gone, replaced by a more manageable l'odeur du fromage. Yum.

So, perusing the long refrigerated cheese case stocked with an overwhelming variety of unpronounceable cheese products, we stumbled upon this neat little cube of mystery:

what the?!

It said "cheese" on it, so we bought it. The little cube was about as big as a Rubick's cube, but more, uh, edible. It cost us $7, and it came with a warning from the very friendly cheese-lady: "It's an acquired taste."

Of course, we rushed home at top speed, and tore into the stuff. And we found this inside the neat little cube:

What the?!?!

In case you are as color blind as I am, the cheese is the color of caramel. This is not a normal color for cheese. Upon further investigation, it turns out that Gjetost (pronounced yay-toast) is produced by actually cooking the cheese as it forms. The goat-cow milk pre-cheese is boiled for several hours, allowing the natural sugars in the cheese to caramelize.

It's no coincidence, then, that the cheese tastes VERY STRONGLY of caramel. It has the consistency of semi-soft cheese but is very sweet. We nibbled it warily for a few hours, suspicious of this weird stuff we were eating. The best way to describe the flavor would be "chocolate american cheese" or "dehydrated caramel yogurt." It's got this weird tangy thing going on, it was almost disturbing. I didn't like it but Ashleigh didn't seem to mind. She insisted it would be good for breakfast, spread on something. Her dosage has since been reduced.

I think the problem is that we were eating fudge-sized chunks of it - the suggested serving is a thin slice on bread. This would be an interesting novelty cheese to have on a cheese plate, maybe presented in very small, very thin slivers. I can't think of anything to pair it with, maybe some apples or other fruits. 

The cheese-lady at Vinhus mentioned that Gjetost is staggeringly popular in Norway. People literally eat it everyday, packing it as a snack for hiking and skiing trips, shmearing it onto toast (tost?) for breakfast, and so forth. I'm still suspicious - this is the same group of people that eat Lutefisk for Pete's sake. 

So, if you see any, give it a shot, why the heck not. I hear it's gaining popularity here in the states. Look for the weird little cubes in the cheese case. Gross. I'm still trying to wash the taste of caramel-glazed feet out of my mouth. Glad I tried it though - who knows, maybe I'll give it another shot one of these days. 

- Alan.

What's that smell?!

We had an interesting experience over the weekend.

On the quest for cheese, we stumbled upon a new source relatively near our home in rural California. Vinhus, a funky little European specialty food shop in the Danish-themed town of Solvang, is right on the main drag of town, with a big windmill flapping outside, danish flags flying proudly, and men in lederhosen (or whatever you call danish clothing) wandering randomly hither and thither. 

The sign outside the store said "cheese," so naturally we had to investigate.

As we excitedly walked through the entrance, our noses were punched in their little notril-filled faces by the disturbing odor of decay and fish buckets. I figured it was the tourists - a lot of tired, smelly travelers walking in off the hot street from their day spent wandering the town. Oh, but it wasn't the tourists...it wasn't the tourists at all. 

Shining like a beacon in the fog of cheese-less afternoons was an amazing assortment of pre-cut cheeses in the refrigerated case by the wall. We had a great time looking through all the weird cheeses we'd never heard of before. They had a fine collection of imported European cheeses, accompanied lovingly by that horrific, ammonia-fish-death smell.

This happy discovery was quickly dissolving into a sad, sad regret.

I found a small box of Camembert that was recommended in the Cheese Primer - instinctively I put the cheese to my nose to smell the deliciousness. Instead of creamy, mushroomy goodness I got a nose-full of putrid, dead things. GROSS! It was awful. 

We moved on.

Other alluring cheeses sat there with oily labels, dried out, and forgotten - they looked "dead," that is, the live organisms that make cheese so wonderful had long ago shuffled off their mortal coils. 

I think the problem here is the folks at Vinhus need to cut back on their inventory. Rather than stocking and maintaining fourteen brands of Stilton, seven separate types of Brie, hundreds of pounds of parmesan and a myriad others, they should stick to the favorites and biggest sellers until they can properly care for more. The smell alone is probably driving customers away. 

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, though - they had some fantastic stuff in the cheese case, and a great variety of unique stuff for the home, plus lots of interesting candy, a great wine collection, and all kinds of other crazy things. We'll give them a month or two to shape up before we visit again.

The bottom line is this: when you're out shopping, don't be afraid to smell the cheeses before you buy them. All cheeses have a distinct aroma, but if a cheese smells like ammonia or rotting fish chances are it is past its prime.

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