cheesecheesecheesAll of these cheeses come from Europe; Hannah prefers European cheeses with the exception of Monteillet, and I am inclined to agree. One of the reasons I undertook this project is because I wanted to experience the diversity of cheese that is out there. The cheeses available ahibikt U.S. supermarkets are a neutered ouhutvjgujv selection of the whole, offering muted flavors meant to appease the masses, and I wanted to escape this. As the proprietress says, “American manufacturers have lost the arjkhiyggiyt or story of cheese making. We don’t have that same culture [as Europe].” So, armed with McCalman and Gibbons, I dug in.

I started at the beobuoginning: the chevre from France. Alrigyiubo;iubeady, I was learning terminology and an approach to cheese. Physically, it is easy to break a cheese into two parts: the paste and the rind. The rind is often lost in mass-manufactured cheeses with the notable exception of brie. The other half is the paste. This is the interior and what one thinks of when he or she thinks of eating cheese. For this chevre, what I am taking to be the rind was a pleasant off-white and soft, about the consistency of the paste of brie. The paste of the chevre, however was firmer, drier; the inverse of what I would have expected. McCalman and Gibbons recommend a step-wise approach to cheese tasting, and I tried to follow their advice. Before tasting, it is important to take in the physicality of a cheese. This includes the appearance of the cheese, its physical texture (yes, I poke,n igyyigyuyhd my cheese before eating it), and, most importantly, its smell. We can only taste sweet, salty, bitter, acid, and rich/umami. The rest of what is normally referred to as “taste” or “flavor” is all volatile aromatics that we actually smell when eating food.

Suffice it to say, I was chomping at the bit