Cheese

One of the foods I really love is cheese.  And not just any cheese, but strong flavored cheeses, especially the various blue cheeses and the long-aged extra-sharp cheddars.

Some of the cheeses I like, of course, have pretty strong aromas. There's an Italian cheese called "Taleggio," which has the consistency of a Brie, but with a very strong smell. I like it, but even more do I like two even stronger cheeses, made here in the United States, that seem to be modeled on Taleggio. There is a cheese called "Grayson" produced in Virginia that is everything that Taleggio is, but more so. Darker in color, stronger in both flavor and aroma. And a California outfit called Cowgirl Creamery produces a cheese called "Red Hawk" which is similar, though not as strong as Grayson. Both these cheeses can be bought at Whole Foods Market, and Cowgirl Creamery has some of their own stores as well, including one in Washington, D. C. (the nearest city to where I live).

My favorite cheese of all is from England, a blue cheese called Shropshire Blue. It's very similar to a Blue Stilton (some Web sites and books say they are identical, but I think I can tell the difference!) and so, as you might guess, Blue Stilton ranks high on my favorites list. Another cheese (also a blue) that I recently discovered and have to consider a favorite is Valdeón, from Spain. It doesn't have the earthiness of the two British blues, but it has most of the taste that I love in a blue, in the extreme.

Getting away from blues, while there are lots of cheeses called Cheddars made in this country, and I like them, as long as they are aged enough to make them very sharp, I need to distinguish the "clothbound" Cheddars, which are so totally distinct that I do not even know why the same name is used for these as for the commonplace Cheddars. They have an earthiness and an entirely different flavor. I should add that a cheese called "Landaff," modeled on a Welsh Caerphilly (though I've never had an authentic Welsh Caerphilly, so I can't be certain it's a close copy), produced in New Hampshire but aged in Vermont and marketed by a Vermont company, is even more earthy, and I have to admit I like this earthiness a lot. So I've been buying Landaff at Whole Foods a lot lately.

I'll be posting more about cheese in the future. It's something I love to eat. And the variety of cheeses to choose from is amazing.