73. Jarlsberg
Can a Swiss cheese be made outside Switzerland, say, in Norway? (I won't even ask about France.) If the answer is no, Jarlsberg is as close as you can get, looking and tasting like a member of the Emmentaler family . As great cheeses go, Jarlsberg is pretty simple, but it still blows the flavor socks of most grocery store varieties of "swiss" cheese like Kraft and Sargento. Slice it for bread or melt it over anything you want au gratin.
Name: Jarlsberg
Type of Milk: cow's, pasteurized
Type: semi-hard
Produced in: Norway
Date Purchased: 12/27/2006
Date Eaten: 12/31/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $7.99/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