365 Cheeses
 

Stinky Cheeses Archives

November 21, 2006

21. Petit Munster Géromé

021_munster.jpg

"Ow, we want the funk.
Give up the funk.
Ow, we need the funk.
We gotta have that funk."
-George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic

Here is a cheese with funk. You will either love it or ask that it be removed from the room while you have the whole house fumigated to remove its foul stench. I lean toward the love side. My fiancée Fleming leans toward the hazmat suit. Petit Munster Géromé, "little Gerry" to his friends, is a complex cheese with complex flavors. Others have described it as “earthy” “with a strong farmyard aroma”. That is a polite way to put it. I can do little to fully describe it other than say it is reminiscent of certain bodily fluids.

The outer rind is an orangey slick paste that surrounds a four-inch disk. Inside is the pale yellow cheese that packs a wicked punch. I have found that many of the ripened cheeses have a noxious odor immediately after unwrapping them. Let them sit unwrapped for 10 to 15 minutes and let them breathe out this unpleasantness. Little Gerry still holds on to other odors but these can be your friends if you don't mind having French friends who smell like they never shower. Cut out a small wedge and spread it on some fresh bread. I enjoyed the complexity of flavors. Fleming said it started out good but had an evil finish.
Be bold and give it a try!

Name: Petit Munster Géromé
Type of Milk: Cow, Pasteurized
Type: Soft
Produced in: France, Jean Rousset Fromager
Date Produced: Unknown
Date Purchased: 11/17/2006
Date Eaten: 11/18/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Raleigh, Whole Foods
Price: $17.99/lb.

Posted on November 21, 2006 1:54 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

January 6, 2007

64. Bavarian Limburger

064_limburger.jpg



Limburger is synonymous with "stinky cheese". When I was young I remember old cartoons and shorts in which strong smells of any kind were symbolized by this pungent cheese. If you ask someone what the worst smelling cheese is, possibly even the worst smelling anything, odds are they will say Limburger. Odds are also that many people who name it haven't even tried it.
And yet...
Limbuger is far from the stinkiest cheese I've come across. Munster
beats it by miles. Many other rind-washed cheeses are just as bad. But Limburger has the reputation over the decades for foul smells and unless ripened cheese catch on in the United States will probably hold on to it a few more years.
So why is Limburger smelly? Limburger and other rind-washed cheeses are fermented by a bacterium called Brevibacterium linens, the same bacterium found on human skin which is responsible in part for our bodily odor. Aside from the smell this bacterium provides the orange-brown color to the rinds of these cheeses.

064_limburger_2.jpg


Limburger originated in Limburg, Belgium but today it is also produced in Germany and the United States. The Limburger I tried today was labled "bayerischer Limburger" or Bavarian Limburger and was wrapped in copper-colored foil. The smell upon unwrapping was strong but not overpowering. Maybe, I've gotten used to strong smelling cheese but the aroma was not awful. Butting through the brownish rind revealed the soft cream color of the inner cheese. The taste was surprisingly mild, almost overprocessed. This was a pasteurized, factory produced cheese so there was not much exciting about it.

Name: Bavarian Limburger, German Limburger, Bayerischer Limburger or Limburger
Type of Milk: Cow, Pasteurized
Type: semi-soft
Produced in: Germany
Date Purchased: 12/27/2006
Date Eaten: 12/31/2006
Purchased Where: United States, North Carolina, Chapel Hill, A Southern Season
Price: $/lb.

Posted on January 6, 2007 11:23 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

February 4, 2007

93. Vacherin Fribourgeois

093_vacherin_fribourgeois.jpg



From time to time someone will say to me, "You must meet a friend of mine. You two will really hit it off." On a rare occasion, we clash like tartan plaid and pastel polka dots when we meet. When this happens I always have to ask myself if the person is really crass, overbearing and foul or did I just catch him on a bad day. These thoughts occurred to me when I tasted Vacherin Fribourgeois for the first time. Right now the two of us can't stand being in the same room together.
Tales of the cheese's youth are glowingly recounted on the label with words such as "grass", "Alpine pastures" and "butter". No trace of these qualities remained in the cheese I tasted, like a beauty pageant winner who has not aged gracefully. The overwhelming flavor of the Vacherin I tasted was funk, the foul bacterial stench of bodily odor.
Vacherin Fribourgeois is a semisoft member of the raclette family, made from unpasteurized cow's milk in the Swiss canton of Fribourg. The Fribougeois will use it in fondue alongside Gruyère from the same region make a moitié-moitié, half-and-half. Either they use a younger cheese or are more accustomed to the taste.

Name: Vacherin Fribourgeois
Type of Milk: cow's, unpasteurized
Type: semisoft
Produced in: Switzerland, Fribourg
Date Purchased: 2/13/2007
Date Eaten: 2/15/2007
Purchased Where: United States, Online Order, www.murrayscheese.com
Price: $26.99/lb.

Posted on February 4, 2007 11:11 PM | | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Powered by Movable Type 3.33
Hosted by LivingDot