20. Grand Cru Gruyère Surchoix
Here is an American Gruyère, made in Wisconsin that's as good as any produced in France or Switzerland, Roth Käse’s Grand Cru Gruyère Surchoix. I think of Gruyère as "the other Swiss cheese". Swiss-style cheeses tend to be either like Emmentaler (big holes, easily melting, mild flavor) or Gruyère (pungent, firmer, packed with flavor). Together they make a perfect, traditional fondue.
Aged at least nine month's Gruyère Surchoix ("surchoix" means "top choice" in French) is a great tasting cheese. It has a bit of funk to it and I mean that in the best possible way. Some cheeses tickle the roof of your mouth with pungent flavor without being sharp like an aged cheddar. This cheese does that. There are some other flavors I can only describe as tannic, but also in a good way.
It is wonderful with apples or fresh bread, walnuts or arugula salad.
Name: Grand Cru Gruyère Surchoix
Type of Milk: Cow, Pasteurized
Type: semi-hard
Produced in: USA, Wisconsin, Monroe, Roth Käse
Date Produced: Unknown
Date Purchased: 11/17/2006
Date Eaten: 11/18/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raleigh, Whole Foods
Price: $12.99/lb.
December 2, 2006
32. Grana Padano Trentino
Grana is one of the best cheeses in the world. I would go so far as to say that I prefer it to Parmigiano Reggiano. I love it. I eat it by itself more often than dilluted in recipes. Seek out this cheese and buy it. It may not be a staple of your cheese shop but often during the holidays, especially those celebrated large by Italians around the world, the special cheeses are brought out. I first had it a dozen Christmases ago at the home of an Italian friend. Her mother brought/smuggled it from Italy and my first thought was, "Wow, this is the best Parmigiano I've ever had!" Turned out it was Grana Padano and this year I saw it in my local store for the first time. This is a special cheese.
Name: Grana Padano Trentino
Type of Milk: Cow, Pasteurized
Type: hard
Produced in: Italy
Date Purchased: 11/25/2006
Date Eaten: 11/28/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raleigh, A Southern Season
Price: $16.99/lb.
December 10, 2006
39. Goulds English Farmhouse Cheddar
Farmhouse cheddars are some of may favorite cheeses. "Farmhouse" typically means two things: the milk is unpasteurized and comes from the milking herd of a single farm. This kind of cheddar produces complex flavors with distinctive farmyard flavors. It is hard to really describe "farmyard flavors" if you've never set foot on a farm but if you have and try this cheese it will bring back many different sense memories. Milk, of course. Hay, straw, grass. Earthy tones. Musky, leathery cow aromas that are not unpleasant to the initiated.
The cheese I recently tasted had some onion- and chive-like flavors that are supposedly not a good sign according to the cheese books. Still I did not think it spoiled the taste and and just added to the layers of complex flavor. Fleming commented that this cheddar packed a ""one-two punch, both punches equally delicious".
I recommend this cheese though serve it in small amounts. A little goes a long way.
Name: Goulds English Farmhouse Cheddar
Type of Milk: Cow, Unpasteurized
Type: semi-hard
Produced in: England, Somerset, EFJ Gould & Co.
Date Purchased: 12/08/2006
Date Eaten: 12/09/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $13.99/lb.
December 13, 2006
42. Drunken Goat
Straight on the heels of Spain's Zamorano comes Drunken Goat or Queso de Cabra al Vino. Is it as good? No. Is it still a good cheese worth trying? Why, yes it is. Drunken Goat gets it name from the milk it is produced from, goat, and the intoxication from the Doble Pasta wine it is bathed in to impart a purplish outer shell. The cheese is soft, pleasant and smooth. The goat's milk instills a light tang to the cheese but the effects of the wine are not as easily noticed. In short it is a good cheese but nothing stellar. If the theme of your cheese plate is Spain or goat's milk cheese, it will make a welcome addition.
Name: Drunken Goat or Queso de Cabra al Vino
Type of Milk: goat, pasteurized
Type: semi-hard
Produced in: Spain
Date Purchased: 12/08/2006
Date Eaten: 12/09/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $15.99/lb.
December 15, 2006
44. Goosnargh Gold Double Gloucester
First thing I noticed about this Goosnargh Gold Double Gloucester cheese is how good looking it is. What a handsome cheese. It looks like a solid, fine, upstanding, leading-man cheese. The marbled brown outer rind fading into a rich orange, layered center. Nice.
Double Gloucester comes from only whole milk wheres his little brother, Single Gloucester is produced from skimmed milk and served a little younger. Both come from the English county of Gloucestershire and were originally made solely from the milk of Glouster cattle, a breed that almost went extinct.
The taste is delicious. Earthy, complex, but still mild.
Name: Goosnargh Gold Double Gloucester
Type of Milk: Cow, Unpasteurized
Type: semi-hard
Produced in: England, Gloucestershire
Date Purchased: 12/08/2006
Date Eaten: 12/09/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $/lb.
January 13, 2007
71. Granitu
A pecorino that tastes like a parmesan, Granitu is a delightful cheese. The documentation on this cheese is minimal. It is imported directly from Sardinia by my local gourmet store, A Southern Season, and the manufacturer's web site describes it only as "Formaggio Pecorino Dolce Stagionato", an aged sweet sheep's milk cheese. For a sheep's milk cheese it has an unusual golden straw-like color and a nuttiness found mostly in cow's milk cheeses. Where I would normally grate both parmesan and pecorino over pasta, I can now use only Granitu and come close to the same effect. Seek it out.
Name: Granitu
Type of Milk: sheep's, pasteurized, part-skim
Type: hard
Produced in: Italy, Sardinia, Santa Marina Formaggi
Date Purchased: 12/27/2006
Date Eaten: 12/31/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $16.99/lb.
January 31, 2007
89. Ski Queen Gjetost Cheese
If ever there was a cheese made from a can of unsweetened condensed milk, it would taste like Gjetost. This Norwegian import, pronounced "yet-oast", is an acquirred taste that I don't think I have the patience to acquire. Sold in a cube with a red label, Ski Queen Gjetost Cheese is made from an odd combination of goat's milk and cow's whey. It makes me think this was some form of war ration cheese when the Nazis diverted Norwegian milk to the Vaterland. That's not true. The cheese is actually over 130 years old and is reported to have been made by a Norwegian farm wife who mixed cream and whey to create a brown caramelly cheese that saved her farm and village from financial ruin. Still I can't say I like the cheese much.
The color of the cheese cube is caramel and the first millisecond of taste offers a promise of sweet browned sugars that is never fufilled. Instead it delivers an unsalted cheese flavor with a weird aftertaste and a fudgelike consistancy. If you are Norwegian or just like this cheese, all the best. I won't be offering it to guests though. Unless they're from Oslo.
Name: Ski Queen Gjetost Cheese
Type of Milk: goat's milk and cow whey, pasteurized
Type: semi-hard
Produced in: Norway
Date Purchased: 1/28/2007
Date Eaten: 1/30/2007
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $4.99 per cube
February 18, 2007
107. Grazalema
Name: Grazalema
Type of Milk: goat's and sheep's, pasteurized
Type: hard
Produced in: Spain, Andalucía
Date Purchased: 2/13/2007
Date Eaten: 2/15/2007
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $/lb.
June 24, 2007
131. Gorgonzola Cremificato
Name: Gorgonzola Cremificato
Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized
Type: semi-soft, blue
Produced in: Italy
Date Purchased: 6/16/2007
Date Eaten: 6/20/2007
Purchased Where: United States, online, Artisinal Cheese
Price: $17.75/lb.
132. Gorgonzola Piccante
Name: Gorgonzola Piccante
Type of Milk: cow's, unpasteurized
Type: semi-soft, blue
Produced in: Italy
Date Purchased: 6/16/2007
Date Eaten: 6/20/2007
Purchased Where: United States, online, Artisanal Cheese
Price: $16.00/lb.
133. Garrotxa
Name: Garrotxa
Type of Milk: goat's, pasteurized
Type: semi-hard
Produced in: Spain
Date Purchased: 6/16/2007
Date Eaten: 6/20/2007
Purchased Where: United States, online, Artisanal Cheese
Price: $26.75/lb.
July 7, 2007
140. Goat Lady Dairy Chevre Camembert
Name: Goat Lady Dairy Chevre Camembert
Type of Milk: goat's, pasteurized
Type: bloomy rind, soft
Produced in: United States of America, North Carolina, Climax, Goat Lady Dairy
Date Purchased: 7/3/2007
Date Eaten:7/4/2007
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raleigh, Whole Foods
Price: $24.99/lb.
July 14, 2007
141. Beemster Graskaas
Name: Beemster Graskaas or Beemster Gras or Gouda Graskaas
Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized
Type: semi-soft
Produced in: The Netherlands, Beemster
Date Purchased: 7/3/2007
Date Eaten:7/4/2007
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $13.99/lb.