Le Tastevin - Notes on Cheeses – April 10, 2024

The cheeses are from York Food and Drink, the epi loaves from Crispelli's Backery in Royal Oak. One cheese is new to our club, another received very favorable feedback from two other offerings. The third cheese is in honor of our friend and member Ken Cook, who recently passed. He was a particular fan of this cheese and would source it for our members.

Le Superbe 1862 Le Gruyère AOP - (Raw cow's milk, salt, bacteria cultures, rennet) is a somewhat spicy, mature cheese with fine salt crystals, characterized with a "fruity note" and an aroma of roasted chestnuts or hazelnuts. This cheese has a history dating back to the year 1115, when monks at the Rougemont monastery in the Gruyère region in West Switzerland began to cultivate the surrounding Alps. Gruyère AOP - the most influential and important Swiss cheese - is still today the favourite of the Swiss among the local cheeses. The consistently high quality is ensured by production according to a traditional recipe. Pure natural ingredients, processed in copper kettles, traditional maturation of a minimum of 8 months to a characteristic grainy, brownish smear rind - only in this way is a true Gruyère AOP produced. LeSuperbe is the brand of the company Lustenberger & Dürst SA.

Brillat-Savarin - (pasteurized cow's milk) s a triple cream dessert cheese created by cheese-maker Henri Androuët in the 1930s. It is named after 19th century gastronome and epicure, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. It is an industrial cheese produced by three dairies situated in the Ile de France region. Since it’s classified as a triple cream cheese, Brillat-Savarin has a fat content of at least 75% achieved by adding rich, luscious cream to whole milk. They are usually matured for about 4-5 weeks to develop more complex flavors, and it exhibits a typical white, bloomy rind with a buttery-white interior paste. The texture is dense, moist, and slightly chalky with enough lusciousness and creaminess for a triple cream cheese. Besides the butter, salt and cream one may note hints of mushroom, nuts and truffles.

Cougar Gold - (pasteurized cow's mik) is a canned cheese that is surprisingly excellent. Produced by the dairy department of Washington State University (then Washington State College) in Pullman, Washinton, the need to safely store and transport cheese in cans with a looming World War in the late 1930s spurred the US government to fund this research with Dr. Norman S. Golding at Washington and the American Can Company. By 1948, research solved the problem of CO2 buildup when bacteria convert lactose into lactic acid by using a different bacteria. The cheese was named "Cougar Gold" after the school's mascot. The cheese is hand-made and pressed and sealed into 30-ounce cans, then aged for one year. This bacteria also creates a creamy, crumbling smooth sharp taste, which is a nice counterpoint to tonight's wines and the other cheeses.

Page last updated: April 12, 2024 (EB)

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