An experiment with two cheeses

Among the cheeses I have had recently in my refrigerator are two that I considered rather similar, one from France and one from this country, and I wanted to compare them closely to see if I could really tell them apart. I was down to small pieces of each last night, and when I came home I decided to make myself a small cheese plate (which I do often) with these two as my featured cheeses. The two are Tomme des Bois Noirs, the French cheese, exported by a cheesemaker (strictly speaking, a cheese ager, which the French call an affineur) named Hervé Mons, and available from Whole Foods Market in this country, and Landaff, the American product, which I mentioned in an earlier post. Both cheeses are somewhat similar, in my opinion, with a somewhat earthy taste, both have a rather similar appearance (there is no really distinct rind, but the outside is very dark from the aging, while it gradually lightens, toward the inner part of the cheese, to a nearly white color), and as it happens, both are produced as farmstead cheeses sent to a specialized aging place separate from the farm where the milk is made into cheese, which also markets the cheese after it is aged. It is true that the Tomme is made from goat's milk, unlike the cow's milk used for Landaff, but if you click the link you will find that Mons deliberately set out to create a cheese without a strong goaty flavor, and I think he succeeded.

Well, tasting the two in quick succession, going back and forth, I come to the following conclusions. The Tomme is certainly stronger in that "earthy" taste I rather like, while the Landaff has a noticeably more acid ("sharp") taste. The Tomme is somewhat firmer, and the Landaff softer, though this difference in texture is slight. (Of course, as has been noted in Landaff Creamery's description of their cheese, farmstead cheeses do vary, so I might have come to different conclusions if I'd tasted different days' purchases of these cheeses.) But they are very close; I can't say I like one better than the other, but both are among my favorites in the "not-blue" category. I will certainly be likely to continue buying both of them.